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How Queensland Police missed a monster · The Front

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  Speaker 1: A warning before we start. This episode mentions child sexual
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  Speaker 1: abuse and exploitation from The Australian. Here's what's on the front.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Christanamiod. It's Monday, September nine. After more than two
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  Speaker 1: years in office, no new homes have been constructed under
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  Speaker 1: the government's thirty two billion dollar housing plan. Labour promised
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  Speaker 1: to build four hundred thousand affordable homes under the scheme,
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  Speaker 1: but it's yet to dispense a single cent. Australian farmers
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  Speaker 1: are flocking to China in hopes of securing a slice
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  Speaker 1: of the nation's eighty billion dollar economy. Officials have struck
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  Speaker 1: a deal for Ossie Apple farmers to access the Chinese
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  Speaker 1: market less than a year after a historic visit by
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  Speaker 1: Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi. You can read that exclusive report
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  Speaker 1: by our correspondent on the ground in China right now
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  Speaker 1: at the Australian dot Com dot a US. Managers of
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  Speaker 1: childcare centers where pedophile Ashley Paul Griffith raped and sexually
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  Speaker 1: abused almost one hundred girls over a twenty year period
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  Speaker 1: were told not to admit their organization was liable for
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  Speaker 1: his crimes. Plus new evidence reveals Queensland police waited several
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  Speaker 1: days to follow up a complaint that might have seen
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  Speaker 1: Griffith exposed sooner. That's today's episode.
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  Speaker 2: I stopped to look into the bottom of the fort
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  Speaker 2: when I saw Ashley on his hands and knees bent
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  Speaker 2: over a girl who was sleeping on her back. His
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  Speaker 2: face was up against hers and his mouth was moving
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  Speaker 2: along her mouth.
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  Speaker 1: These are the chilling words written by a twenty six
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  Speaker 1: year old childcare worker in an email to her boss
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  Speaker 1: in late twenty twenty one. They're being read by a
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  Speaker 1: voice actor.
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  Speaker 2: I quickly walked inside, shocked by what had just happened.
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  Speaker 2: I spoke with a female staff member explaining what I
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  Speaker 2: had seen. My thoughts at this point were to go
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  Speaker 2: back out and save the child.
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  Speaker 1: The childcare worker is detailing an incident she witnessed at
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  Speaker 1: the Brisbane Uniting Church childcare center where she worked. The
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  Speaker 1: colleague she refers to in the email is Ashley Paul Griffith,
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  Speaker 1: who was her boss at the time. Within hours, the
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  Speaker 1: report was escalated to the center's management and the childcare regulators.
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  Speaker 1: The next day it was referred to the Queensland Police
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  Speaker 1: Child Protection Unit, but that's as far as it went.
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  Speaker 1: The cops wrote it up as a suspected child harm
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  Speaker 1: incident because the officers couldn't determine if physical contact had
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  Speaker 1: been made from their interview with the twenty six year
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  Speaker 1: old educator.
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  Speaker 2: When I first came, it did look like he was
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  Speaker 2: kissing her, but when I didn't actually see any contact,
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  Speaker 2: but I don't know, he was kind of pecking his
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  Speaker 2: lips and his head was kind of moving.
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  Speaker 1: It was a critical and devastating error by Queensland Police.
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  Speaker 1: That incident in a wooden children's fort in Brisbane was
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  Speaker 1: one of hundreds of instances of child sexual abuse and
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  Speaker 1: rape allegedly perpetrated by Ashley Paul Griffith over two decades.
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  Speaker 1: He would spend the next ten months working at other
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  Speaker 1: childcare centers across Queensland before he was arrested and charged
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  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two.
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  Speaker 3: Today I can outline the details of Operation Tented Field,
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  Speaker 3: an investigation that has led to a former childcare worker
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  Speaker 3: being charged with one thousand, six hundred and twenty three
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  Speaker 3: child abuse of affairs against ninety one children, including one
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  Speaker 3: hundred and thirty six counts of rape and one hundred
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  Speaker 3: and ten counts of sexual intercourse with the child. Under
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  Speaker 3: ten in Brisbane, Sydney and overseas between two thousand and
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  Speaker 3: seven and two thousand and twenty two.
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  Speaker 1: But it wasn't what transpired that afternoon in Brisbane that
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  Speaker 1: landed Griffith in cuffs. Victim identification experts from the Australian
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  Speaker 1: Federal Police Force had traced bed sheets that appeared in
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  Speaker 1: child abuse material on the dark Web years earlier to
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  Speaker 1: a childcare center where he previously worked. A search of
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  Speaker 1: his devices uncovered Griffith's decades long campaign of horror, more
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  Speaker 1: than four thousand images charting his crimes over his twenty
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  Speaker 1: year career in childcare.
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  Speaker 4: We alleged the forty five year old man from the
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  Speaker 4: Gold Coast recorded all his alleged offending on his phone
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  Speaker 4: and cameras. The AFP is highly confident that all eighty
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  Speaker 4: seven Australian.
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  Speaker 5: Children who were recorded in the alleged child abuse material
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  Speaker 5: have been identified. The parents the Australian children recorded in
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  Speaker 5: the alleged child abuse material have been informed of the investigation.
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  Speaker 1: Last week, Ashley Paul Griffith pleaded guilty to three hundred
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  Speaker 1: and seven charges including indecent treatment of children, creation and
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  Speaker 1: distribution of child exploitation material and rape. It took two
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  Speaker 1: and a half hours to read the charges to the
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  Speaker 1: packed courtroom, where family members of Griffith's ninety one known
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  Speaker 1: victims openly sobbed. Other than a response of guilty to
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  Speaker 1: each of the charges, Griffith didn't speak, waiving his right
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  Speaker 1: to make a statement at the conclusion of the proceeding.
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  Speaker 1: The decision by Queensland Police not to pursue Ashley Paul
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  Speaker 1: Griffith following the report of the fort incident meant Australia's
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  Speaker 1: worst pedophile evaded capture. After being cleared by police in
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, he raped at least one more girl
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  Speaker 1: and sexually abused three others. The Queensland Police Service has
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  Speaker 1: defended its handling of the incident, saying all their procedures
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  Speaker 1: were followed, but today The Australian's National Crime correspondent, David
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  Speaker 1: Murray is revealing it took police days to follow up
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  Speaker 1: the complaint.
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  Speaker 6: So up until this point we've had assurances from police
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  Speaker 6: that they've looked back over the investigations that were done
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  Speaker 6: into Griffith prior to his arrest, and there were two
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  Speaker 6: of those. One there was a complaint about this Ford incident.
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  Speaker 6: Two there was another complaint about a young girl who
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  Speaker 6: said she'd been touched on the privates by Ashley Griffith,
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  Speaker 6: her teacher. These documents really raised more questions about how
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  Speaker 6: this initial complaint with the Ford incident was handled. So
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  Speaker 6: we can see that the Uniting Church which managed this
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  Speaker 6: tildcare center went to regulators that night and they forwarded
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  Speaker 6: on the email that this witness had sent them. Immediately
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  Speaker 6: the next day, a manager from the church calls police
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  Speaker 6: on the police link line and reports it as a
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  Speaker 6: non urgent matter and it's taken up by a sergeant
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  Speaker 6: at a local police station. For some reason, it doesn't
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  Speaker 6: appear to have gone straight to a trial protection and
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  Speaker 6: investigation unit, although they were asked for advice. And what
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  Speaker 6: happens is that it seems to water down from what
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  Speaker 6: is written in the initial email the day earlier, where
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  Speaker 6: she describes seeing this mouth against mouth scenario and she
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  Speaker 6: is clearly shocked by. In her email to a manager,
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  Speaker 6: she also details how Griffith had isolated kids. This wasn't
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  Speaker 6: a one off. He was getting the kids into one
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  Speaker 6: area of the childcare center and looking after them and
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  Speaker 6: splitting the kids so other kids were in another area,
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  Speaker 6: and that had the effect or splitting supervision. So you'd
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  Speaker 6: have one manager on a break during naptime, another manager
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  Speaker 6: with the other kids in the other room, and then
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  Speaker 6: you have Griffith spending time alone with this group of
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  Speaker 6: kids who are sleeping. She raises that, I think very
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  Speaker 6: specifically to let her managers know that this is potentially
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  Speaker 6: not a one off incident. But when it goes to
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  Speaker 6: police the next day, the logs that I've cited state
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  Speaker 6: that will file this as a child harm report and
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  Speaker 6: someone will get back to you in a couple of days,
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  Speaker 6: maybe on the Monday or the Tuesday. Now, if you
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  Speaker 6: just think about this scenario, how often does a childcare
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  Speaker 6: worker come across something that deserves us so much that
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  Speaker 6: they immediately tell a colleague, They report it in an email,
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  Speaker 6: they tell everyone up the chain that they're supposed to
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  Speaker 6: that they're really alarmed by what they've seen. Yet there's
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  Speaker 6: no urgency from police for some reason. After she talks
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  Speaker 6: to them, it's treated like something that can just be
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  Speaker 6: handled later, because, oh, well, he's going to be suspended
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  Speaker 6: from the child caressender. While this isn't investigator, there's no
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  Speaker 6: kids at risk as far as we know, and I've
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  Speaker 6: checked over and over again, police did not search his phone,
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  Speaker 6: They did not search his home. It was a month
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  Speaker 6: later before they actually sat down at the Trial Protection
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  Speaker 6: and Investigation Unit and talked to this witness. And the
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  Speaker 6: question is, well, what happened? Why wasn't this treated potentially
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  Speaker 6: more seriously than it was. The police say all their
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  Speaker 6: policies were followed. Okay, are the policies right in that case?
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  Speaker 6: Were they actually followed? That's what we're trying to find out.
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  Speaker 1: Now. The community wants answers.
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  Speaker 6: This is the worst abuse this nation has ever seen
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  Speaker 6: in childcare centers, and there's been absolutely no sign of
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  Speaker 6: any kind of inquiry to get to the bottom of
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  Speaker 6: how that could happen or where the responses from the
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  Speaker 6: childcare centers, from the authorities, the police, the regulators, was
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  Speaker 6: up to scratch. What we're seeing in documents that I
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  Speaker 6: cited is that four days after this report is made
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  Speaker 6: to police, the childcare center's manager still hasn't heard from
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  Speaker 6: the Child Protection and Investigation Unit. Child protection advocates that
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  Speaker 6: I'm talking to detectives, former detectives. They're saying, Okay, we
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  Speaker 6: need to have a serious look at the way that
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  Speaker 6: this was handled, this whole scenario, because this is, as
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  Speaker 6: I said, one of the worst cases this country has
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  Speaker 6: ever seen of child abuse.
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  Speaker 1: Also seen in those documents is advice from the Uniting
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  Speaker 1: Churches insurance expert about how staff should respond to inquiries
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  Speaker 1: from distraught parents.
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  Speaker 6: Right at the time that the United Church was finding
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  Speaker 6: out that there was an investigation into one of its
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  Speaker 6: former directors at a childcare center, which was October of
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  Speaker 6: twenty twenty two, the communications manager in the Church and
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  Speaker 6: queens at the time sent an email saying that a
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  Speaker 6: parent had inquired about getting money back, of getting fees refunded,
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  Speaker 6: of getting fees waived, and her question was, well, what
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  Speaker 6: are the insurance implications of that? And the Church in
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  Speaker 6: Queensland's insurance advisor it's specialists replied back that said it
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  Speaker 6: was a general requirement that the Church does not admit
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  Speaker 6: liability in cases. Now, it wasn't detailed in these emails
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  Speaker 6: what the case was, exactly why they were being asked
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  Speaker 6: for their money back, but it was right in that
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  Speaker 6: time period that parents across the country were finding out
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  Speaker 6: that their kids had been abused at centers all over Brisbane,
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  Speaker 6: in New South Wales and Italy and were furious, demanding answers.
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  Speaker 6: Were just completely in shock. And this again goes to
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  Speaker 6: the issue of openness. How does the public find out
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  Speaker 6: about what's happening, How do we get the truth? If
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  Speaker 6: there's this general requirement, it wouldn't be unique to the
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  Speaker 6: church and re insurance policies all over the place that
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  Speaker 6: require people just to not admit that you got it wrong.
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  Speaker 6: But this show is it in black and white that
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  Speaker 6: this policy of the church at the time was in
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  Speaker 6: place that they couldn't say, yeah, we're right for it.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up, why police pursued a whistleblower and not the
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  Speaker 1: nation's worst child predator. Subscribers to The Australian here exclusive
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: stories like this one. First check us out at the
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  Speaker 1: Australian dot com dot au and we'll be back after
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  Speaker 1: this break.
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  Speaker 7: I don't believe that it's a problem with people who
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  Speaker 7: deliver there. The problem is with the whole system. Obviously
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  Speaker 7: this system is failing.
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  Speaker 1: That's the voice of Yolanda Baruki. She was the Uniting
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  Speaker 1: Churches manager of early learning operations when pedophile Ashley Paul
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  Speaker 1: Griffith was observed leaning over a sleeping girl at one
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  Speaker 1: of its Brisbane childcare centers in twenty twenty one. She
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  Speaker 1: escalated the report made by the twenty six year old
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  Speaker 1: witness to her colleagues in senior management.
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  Speaker 7: I am mum, I'm grammar. I could not even imagine
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  Speaker 7: what the parents of those children going through at the moment.
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  Speaker 7: The system failed them. The system failed also myself and
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  Speaker 7: alsold all the people who've been working in this spartacular center.
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  Speaker 1: It was on this episode of A Current Affair, aired
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  Speaker 1: after Griffith was arrested and charged, that the fort incident
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  Speaker 1: first became public knowledge.
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  Speaker 7: We didn't keep quiet. We've been very clear something is wrong,
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  Speaker 7: but no one done anything about it.
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  Speaker 1: Less than two weeks after the program went to air,
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  Speaker 1: detectives from Queensland's online exploitation unit, known as Task Force Argos,
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  Speaker 1: appeared on Yulander Beruki's doorstep with a search warrant in hand.
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  Speaker 1: They weren't there to thank her for her bravery in
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  Speaker 1: exposing the nation's worst child predator. Rather, they scooped up
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  Speaker 1: her phone and all Internet enabled devices and demanded access
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  Speaker 1: to their contents. Jlander Beruki's employer said she'd accessed confidential
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  Speaker 1: information on a restricted computer and then handed it over
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  Speaker 1: to the producers of a current affair. She was arrested
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  Speaker 1: and charged with computer hacking on the same day as
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  Speaker 1: the detectives unexpectedly arrived at her home. She'll had to
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  Speaker 1: court for a hearing on the matter in November, and
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  Speaker 1: in the meantime, her blue card, also known as a
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  Speaker 1: Working with Children check, is understood to have been suspended.
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  Speaker 1: Here's David Murray.
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  Speaker 6: When Griffith was first charged, we knew almost nothing right,
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  Speaker 6: but we were given information from the police the basic
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  Speaker 6: facts of the number of victims that it worked at
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  Speaker 6: a number of centers. We weren't actually even given his
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  Speaker 6: name because that was restricted under Queensland law at the
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  Speaker 6: time You landed Barucki when she spoke out, that was
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  Speaker 6: the first time we actually found out what happened in
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  Speaker 6: that scenario. We knew there had been some complaint to police,
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  Speaker 6: and this is so important for the public to know
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  Speaker 6: how these prior complaints were handled, and you land A
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  Speaker 6: Buraki shed some light on that. I think police should
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  Speaker 6: have been really mindful that this is a situation where
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  Speaker 6: everyone in the public is on edge. There's kids being
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  Speaker 6: abused in child kiss and there's questions over whether police
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  Speaker 6: have handled this correctly. It was a bit call to
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  Speaker 6: go and then raid someone's house in the way that
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  Speaker 6: they did on a complaint from a church, which is
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  Speaker 6: it self of course will face naturally questions about whether
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  Speaker 6: it could have done more. We as journalists have faced
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  Speaker 6: with this constantly, where it's just very difficult to get
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  Speaker 6: information and people are quite often scared to talk out
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  Speaker 6: and when police come in and arrest charge people who
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  Speaker 6: do speak to the media, it has an intimidating effect
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  Speaker 6: on other witnesses and other people who might want to talk.
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  Speaker 6: And the public does have a right to know of
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  Speaker 6: what happened in this situation. We can't just accept police
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  Speaker 6: statements from government agencies from the police saying that everything
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  Speaker 6: they did was fine. We need the facts and then
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  Speaker 6: the public can decide for themselves.
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  Speaker 1: David Murray is The Australian's National crime correspondent. You can
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: read his full report right now at The Australian dot
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  Speaker 1: com dot au