A childcare worker accused of abusing infants was sacked from one centre, it has been revealed.
Joshua Dale Brown, 26, has been charged with more than 70 sex offences against eight alleged victims aged under two at a childcare centre in Melbourne.
Authorities have previously said there were no known complaints against him. However, childcare giant Nido Early Learning has confirmed Brown was sacked while on probation after completing 18 shifts at one of its centres in Werribee, in Melbourne’s west.
The incident happened before he started working at G8-owned Creative Garden centre, at Point Cook in Melbourne’s south-west. He is accused of abusing children there between April 2022 and January 2023.
A Nido Early Learning spokesperson said Brown was terminated over “unsatisfactory attention” to an internal incident report related to one child’s behaviour towards another child.
“The action did not relate to any behaviour by the individual towards a child,” they said.
“We have zero tolerance for the non-compliance to our internal policies, no matter how trivial they sound to external parties.”
Brown was also subject to two misconduct investigations while he worked at G8. Both found the non-sexual claims involving children were substantiated.
He was suspended and then resigned after the second investigation. Both incidents came after the alleged abuse for which he has been charged.
The parents of about 2000 children who crossed paths with Brown have been told to get them tested for infectious diseases.
His work history was updated this week to include four new centres.
Investigators have blamed delays on gathering information on his employment on a lack of centralised records, revealing they had to get search warrants to obtain handwritten records, shift rosters and other critical data.
Federal and state jurisdictions have promised to fast-track a national register for childcare workers, after it was discovered Brown had worked at 24 centres since 2017.
The government will introduce legislation to strip dodgy childcare centres of federal funding, among other changes, when parliament resumes.
The Victorian opposition is concerned that may not be enough to prevent abuse.
“The government must ensure its proposed legislation improves safety and removes the risk of this ever happening again,” early learning spokesperson Zoe McKenzie said.
Poor record-keeping and information sharing in sectors dealing with children were key issues highlighted in the 2017 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
The commission’s recommendations included improving teacher and worker registrations, improving the quality of institutional record-keeping, the ability to exchange information between centres, and for states and territories to keep better track of workers.
While all nine governments in Australia accepted the recommendations, it had been difficult to get them to act, former royal commissioner Robert Fitzgerald said.
“Ten years on from our recommendations around information sharing and record-keeping, the job has not yet been done and it has not been done because the nine governments of Australia have not committed the willpower to get it done in a timely manner,” he said.
Fitzgerald accused some states and territories of being particularly slow in implementing significant recommendations.
“These are all manageable. These are all achievable and my disappointment is that progress has been made, but the job should have been done,” he said.
He said every gap in safeguarding the sector meant children were at risk.
Adequate record-keeping and information sharing can inform subsequent employers of a history of concern, not necessarily convictions, and can provide authorities with an insight into any patterns of abuse.
But Fitzgerald warned that workers’ rights must not be abandoned where complaints or criminal action had not been substantiated.
1800 RESPECT 1800 737 732
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
-AAP
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