Eight alleged victims and 70 charges of child sexual abuse. Another 1200 children have been urged to undergo testing for sexually transmitted diseases. A childcare educator accused of abuse who worked across 20 different centres.
Written like this, these alleged facts, if proven, make for sickening reading.
But there are still many questions, such as whether anyone had previously noticed anything about the man – Joshua Dale Brown – now charged, what led police to raid the 26-year-old’s home in Point Cook, and what needs to happen to better protect children.
Chris Vedelago, senior reporter for The Age, is among the reporting team piecing together the case for this masthead. Vedelago explains how the case unfolded in the latest episode of The Morning Edition podcast with host Samantha Selinger-Morris.
Click the player below to listen, or read on for an edited extract.
Selinger-Morris: So, Chris, first off, this has got to be every parent’s worst nightmare. Can you just talk us through how this case has come to light?
Vedelago: What happened is police believe they had detected this man, Joshua Brown, allegedly in possession of child abuse material. They raided his house, and they arrested him, and they charged him, and then from there, they had to work out who the alleged victims were and where the offending had taken place. We’re not clear yet exactly how the police found this particular man. All we know is that they detected something that was of concern and they immediately raided him.
Selinger-Morris: And to be clear, we are talking about babies here. I believe we’re talking about alleged victims who are between the ages of five months and two years. Is that right?
Vedelago: That’s right. The oldest is two years and the youngest is five months. That in itself presented serious obstacles for the detectives who were investigating this. They had to basically reverse-engineer the process to figure out who the alleged victims were. And they didn’t want to go public until they knew the identity of the eight alleged victims so they could notify the parents.
Joshua Brown is alleged to have abused eight children who attended the Creative Garden Early Learning Centre in Point Cook between April 2022 and January 2023.Credit: Marija Ercegovac
Selinger-Morris also spoke to Lisa Bryant, an early education and care advocate, and asked what had happened in the childcare sector over a number of years to lead to this crisis.
Bryant: Our centres are getting bigger and bigger, right? Whereas before, you used to have a large number of really small centres, you know, 30 or 40 children in a centre. Now we’re having centres, the largest centres are up to 400 you know, 400 places. So when you have 400 children in the centre, it’s not the same intimate environment where everyone knows each other and knows what’s happening and knows, you know, what is happening in the environment. It’s a much different kind of environment. You have people coming and going, a lot more casual staff coming and going. These places aren’t places that are fun to work, and so their turnover is a lot higher. People churn through them. They rely on casual workforces.
Selinger-Morris: So I have to ask you what I’m sure a lot of people listening to this will be asking themselves, which is whether children really are less safe or are they more vulnerable in for profit centres in comparison to not-for-profit centres?
Bryant: Well, look, the statistics tell us that on the rating system that happens for all education and care services across Australia that not-for-profit centres and those smaller for-profit centres, the ones that we call mum and dad for-profit centres, that have been held by a family for years and years, are a lot safer than the corporate ones and the private equity ones.
But you know, the sorts of things, if I was a parent, that my advice to parents to look out for is, first of all, check who owns a service. You know, if it is one of those smaller for-profit ones, or if it is a not-for-profit, especially the smaller not for profits. You know, you’re probably in fairly good hands. Check what the rating is. It’s not always 100 per cent guarantee, but it’s the best kind of assessment of their quality that we have, examine the staff to child ratios, you know, the ones that run on the very minimum legal staff ratios are probably not as good as the ones that are consistently above the minimum ratios.
Check the staff turnover. This is always the really key point. Have the staff been there for a while? Are the staff happy there. Don’t be fooled by appearances. Don’t go for the glossy centre. That’s not necessarily the best centre. Trust your instincts. Trust them, yeah, just really check out “how do I feel about these people? Do I think that they’re in it for the right reasons”. If I do, then run with that. If you’re handing over to an educator that you’re not certain about, walk away. It’s not worth the risk.
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