A childcare centre is supporting parents after a worker was charged with indecent treatment of a four-year-old.
Queensland Police charged a 21-year-old man with indecent treatment, alleging an incident occurred at a childcare centre east of Brisbane, owned by Affinity Education Group, on July 10.
It’s understood the man held a current and valid working with children check.
The man was given conditional bail to appear in Brisbane Magistrates Court on August 4.
“Investigations by the Bayside Child Protection Investigation Unit remain ongoing,” Queensland Police said on Thursday.
Affinity Education Group said it reported the allegations to police and stood down the man as soon as it became aware of the complaints. It said the matter was being taken “extremely seriously”.
“The safety and wellbeing of all children and staff at our centres is our highest priority, and we will continue to co-operate with regulatory authorities and support our families and team during this time,” the business said.
Parents at the childcare centre are being informed by police regarding the matter, Affinity said.
“We are supporting all families in any way we can, including offering counselling support services,” it said.
One mother, who did not wish to be identified, said outside the centre she was “shocked” to read an article on Thursday morning about the allegations.
“It’s too close to home. It’s one thing to hear about something going on in Melbourne,” she said, referencing hundreds of children in Victoria undergoing infectious diseases testing after a childcare centre worker was charged with sexual abuse.
The mother claimed she had received no correspondence from the centre on Thursday afternoon and had called earlier to find out what had happened.
She believed the centre would do “what’s right by the kids” and that the educators were distraught when they heard the news.
“You want to trust your gut instinct, I never had anything to tell me they were unsafe here, we have to wait and see the allegations,” she said.
Now that the worker had been stood down, the woman felt safe sending her child to the centre, given the company was not “pushing [allegations] under the rug”.
Queensland Premier David Crisafulli called the allegations “horrific and sickening”, and offered his sympathies to the affected families.
“What parents are comprehending at the moment right across the state is not what any parent should have to go through when they are dropping their kids off to a place where they need to know that their kids are safe,” he said.
Queensland is in the middle of a commission of inquiry into the child safety system, including child care centres, to prevent further incidents of alleged abuse.
“We are not going to have a situation where monsters can lurk in centres where our most vulnerable and most precious assets, our children, go every day,” Crisafulli said.
The state’s Family and Child Commission was already revieing the child care system following the jailing of one of Australia’s worst pedophiles, Ashley Paul Griffith. He was jailed for life, with a non-parole period of 27 years, late last year after pleading guilty to hundreds of offences.
A preliminary report from the review found Queensland’s early childhood organisations prioritised reputation and fear of defamation and legal risks over raising concerns about potential child sex offenders — especially if complaints weren’t substantiated.
The latest set of allegations the charging of Joshua Dale Brown, 26, with more than 70 sex offences against eight alleged victims aged under two at a Melbourne centre.
Brown has worked at 23 centres since 2017, including some Affinity Education Group facilities in Victoria.
1800 RESPECT 1800 737 732
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
-AAP
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