A childcare worker who abused more than 60 girls has been sentenced to life in prison

A former childcare worker dubbed “one of the worst children in Australia” has been jailed for life for raping and sexually assaulting nearly 70 girls.

Ashley Paul Griffith, 47, admitted 307 offenses committed in child care centers in the Australian state of Queensland and Italy between 2003 and 2022. His victims were between one and seven years old.

Judge Paul Smith called the scale and nature of the crime “depraved” and “appalling”, saying there was “a serious breach of trust”.

Griffith is accused of abusing an unknown number of children in the state of New South Wales.

In the Brisbane District Court on Friday, Judge Smith said Griffith – who the court heard had a “problem with children” – was at high risk of re-offending, and ordered a non-parole period of at least 27 years.

Griffith was first arrested in August 2022 by Australian federal police, and a year later he was charged with more than 1,600 counts of child sex. Most of them were eventually withdrawn.

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Investigators found thousands of photos and videos of her abuse, which she had taken and posted on the dark web.

Although the faces were cropped out of the footage, they were able to trace them to Griffith because of a unique set of bed sheets seen in the background of the videos, which were sold to childcare centers across Queensland.

He pleaded guilty to 28 counts of rape, nearly 200 counts of child abuse, and others of making and sharing child abuse material.

Four of the victims were under his care at a childcare center in Pisa, Italy, while the other 65 are from 11 locations in Brisbane, Australia.

Before his sentence, the court heard a series of emotional statements from Griffith’s victims and their parents.

Among them were two sisters who were abused in kindergarten, one of whom remembered that Griffith was the teacher she loved the most.

“Finding out what he was really doing was painful and mixed emotions, to say the least,” she said, according to the Courier Mail.

“I can’t seem to process it yet, because there’s a disconnect between what I remember and reality.”

One of his victims told how his actions robbed her of a normal childhood, recounting her struggles with mental illness over the years.

“I will never know what my life would be like,” he said in a Guardian Australia report.

“I don’t know what it would be like to grow up without being afraid of people.”

Meanwhile, parents told the court of their fear when they found out about their children’s crimes, and many said they found it difficult to forgive themselves for trusting Griffith.

“(My daughter) loved you like an uncle and you used him as a toy,” another said, according to News Corp Australia.

Another explained how she was trying to keep the burden of knowledge of the abuse from her daughter.

“I can’t undo what you did to his body but I will do everything I can to minimize the damage to his mind,” she said, according to the Courier Mail.