‘You saw it all on the CCTV’: Perth daycare worker denies anything amiss in footage shown to jury

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A 39-year-old man accused of indecently assaulting two young children at separate daycare centres in Perth has taken to the witness stand in his own trial to respond to the allegations.

Two girls aged four and six gave evidence earlier this week alleging Robert Reti, a casual childhood educator, inappropriately touched them in 2023.

Robert Reti denies indecently assaulting two young children.

Reti has pleaded not guilty to two charges of indecently dealing with a child under 13, which prosecutors say occurred when he worked the before-school and after-school shifts at two separate centres in Banksia Grove and Lesmurdie.

One of the girls described how she was sitting on Reti’s lap when he allegedly touched her inappropriately, describing how he had an “evil smile” on his face.

“He’s not supposed to do that,” she told the court.

Another child, aged four, told the court Reti once had a hole in his shorts and exposed himself while he was chasing her.

The court heard that the girls’ parents reported the incidents to police.

But on Thursday, Reti took to the stand to confront the allegations, telling both his own lawyer and the prosecutor that sometimes the kindergarten-aged children would sit on his lap if they were seeking support when they were tentative.

“If a little kindy kid was scared or whatever [I would allow them to sit on my lap], but if a big kid sits on your lap, that’s not, kind of, appropriate,” he told his lawyer Hamish Glenister.

“Was physical contact between yourself and children common?” Glenister asked.

“Yes, they would come up for hugs and stuff. I was one of the most popular educators there,” Reti responded.

Asked if he ever exposed himself to one of the children, Reti laughed and said no.

“The CCTV of her in a red shirt, sitting on me that way, being a bit crazy and me trying to calm her down – that was the day that this all happened,” Reti said, referring to vision shown earlier in the trial.

“She’s sitting on me, doing all those crazy things, she said, ‘You have a willy’ and I said, ‘What?’ She’s looking down and said, ‘You have a willy and I can feel it’, and I said, ‘No thank you, you need to hop off now’.

“That was the incident. You saw it all on the CCTV.”

But prosecutor Kathryn Kraus put it to Reti that he knew the location of “blind spots” for CCTV cameras in all the day rooms were, and questioned him on why he chose to work in childcare.

“Would you agree most of your jobs involve contact with children?” she asked, after pointing out to Reti that at the time of the offending he was working in multiple other casual jobs, as well as at the day care centres.

“In fact, what you wanted was exposure to as many children as possible,” Kraus put to Reti.

“Well, they were fun jobs,” Reti replied.

“You liked giving kids a cuddle?” Kraus asked.

“When they cuddled me,” he responded.

“I wouldn’t go out of my way to cuddle them.”

Reti said the children were always “hanging off him”, adding that it was “nice to feel loved and wanted”.