THE “world’s worst paedo” has been unmasked as childcare worker Ashley Griffin.
The alleged sex offender is accused of horrid abuse on an industrial scale with 91 young victims and 1,623 charges against him.
Ashley Griffin, who if convicted of all of the alleged crimes would become Australia’s worse ever paedo9News
AlamyQueensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll was involved in getting the new law modernised so sexual offenders can be named in certain circumstances[/caption]
Griffith, 45, had his identity revealed after allegedly raping and abusing girls at various childcare centres in Queensland, New South Wales and other places outside of Australia.
If he’s convicted of all the alleged offences, Griffith would be considered the worst paedophile in Australian history.
The supposed crimes took place over a 15-year period between 2007 to 2022.
With at least 23 of his alleged victims being aged between one and five when the abuse happened.
The man from the Gold Coast has been charged with more than 1600 alleged offences including rape, indecent treatment of children and making and possessing child exploitation material, reported Courier Mail.
The scarily high number of offences include 136 counts of rape, 604 charges of indecent treatment of a child and 613 counts of making child exploitation material, just in Queensland.
Investigators first spotted illegal photos and clips on a dark web platform in 2014 that Griffith made and put out, according to the police.
But it wasn’t until August 2022 that the link to a Brisbane childcare centre were made when certain objects were seen in the background of the porn material by the Australian Federal Police (AFP).
The alleged sick paedo was then arrested and charged with making and distributing child abuse material.
Following his arrest, hundreds more charges were made after police went through thousands of images allegedly found on his phone and other devices.
Police will allege Griffith raped one of his victims 28 times and sexually abused another a staggering 54 times.
Another young girl was allegedly raped 27 times and sexually abused 34 times, according to the public court documents.
Police claim the offences happened in Sydney and Brisbane between 2007 to 2013 and 2018 to 2022, and then in Europe in 2013 and 2014.
The AFP said that it’s “highly confident” that 87 children have been identified, and their families informed during the investigation.
So many parents were concerned by the high number of the alleged crimes that AFP had to tell the public if they haven’t been spoken to by authorities then its extremely unlikely their child was a victim.
AFP Assistant Commissioner Justin Gough said: “The AFP is highly confident that all the Australian children who were recorded in the alleged child-abuse material have been identified.
“This is a distressing time for families, carers and the community broadly.”
Griffith’s identity comes after a new law was announced on Tuesday in Queensland that “modernises” reporting of such crimes.
The scrapped law didn’t allow alleged rapists to be named until they were about to stand trial.
Several other accused sex offenders are now being named for the first time since the changes came into effect.
Griffith was kept anonymous since being arrested in 2022 before more than 1,000 child exploitation charges were made public against him a year later.
He has been investigated before for sexual offences after colleagues reported him to police in October 2021 after allegedly seeing him inappropriately touching children.
The case was dropped due to a lack of evidence, and he returned to work with kids soon after.
He worryingly worked as a director of a childcare centre in Brisbane.
His staff profile said: “I love engaging children in meaningful experiences that inspire their play and learning,” he said.
“Young children are natural inquirers, exploring the world through their senses, seeking answers and building theories.
“As an Early Childhood Teacher I hope to share this journey, learning side-by-side children and inspiring them.”
Griffith‘s charges are due in court again on November 6.
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