The mother of a young girl, who is among the alleged victims of Australia’s most notorious daycare predator, is fervently calling for justice to be served in New South Wales. She seeks accountability for the crimes Ashley Paul Griffith is accused of committing against her daughter and 22 other children.
She yearns for a chance to confront Griffith directly, expressing her outrage not only at him but also at the management of a Sydney childcare center. This facility reportedly enabled him to isolate and target his victims.
“He hurt my child, and he deserves to be punished,” she stated emphatically.
Currently, Griffith is appealing a 27-year prison sentence for offenses against 69 girls in Queensland, which has stalled any legal proceedings against him in Sydney.
This prolonged wait weighs heavily on the parents of the 23 girls he is accused of abusing at the Explore and Develop Camperdown center between 2014 and 2017.
“I feel anxious, I feel frustrated, I feel angry,” the mother confessed, capturing the emotional toll of the ongoing delay.
“I am also genuinely worried that he will be dead before he’s brought to Sydney to face charges and then nothing. We have no full stop.”
She said she wants to tell Griffith “he’s a disgusting animal”.
“I think he’s an awful, awful example of a human.”
The mother says she is also angry with the owners of the centre where Griffith is accused of carrying out 180 counts of sexual abuse.
“I loathe them for what they allowed to happen,” she said.
The owners told families: “There was never any suspicion by us, nor his fellow teachers that his behaviour towards the children was in any way questionable. Unfortunately, there just were not any warning signs.”
A former educator told police Griffith was often alone with children in the preschool room with the door shut and on two or three occasions she witnessed “inappropriate touching of girls, isolating them during sleep time was one of his main focuses”.
The woman, who has since been banned from working with children, says she never reported anything because Griffith was “fully trusted by management”.
“I was frightened of losing my job and becoming unaccepted … I thought the girls would speak up,” she said.
A tribunal found “there was such a fundamental and catastrophic failure by the centre, the managers and supervisor to identify the risk of harm to children in the centre”.
“I was so let down, my daughter was let down,” the mother said.
