It’s been revealed that a childcare worker accused of abusing infants was sacked from one facility, as a former royal commissioner castigated authorities for dragging their feet on record-keeping.
Joshua Dale Brown, 26, has been charged with more than 70 sex offences against eight alleged victims aged under two at a childcare centre in Melbourne.
Authorities have previously said there were no known complaints against him, however, childcare giant Nido Early Learning has confirmed Brown was sacked while on probation after completing 18 shifts at a centre in Werribee, in Melbourne’s west.
The incident happened before he started working at G8-owned Creative Garden centre, at Point Cook in Melbourne’s southwest, where he is accused of abusing children between April 2022 and January 2023.
A Nido Early Learning spokesperson said Brown was terminated over “unsatisfactory attention” given to an internal incident report related to one child’s behaviour towards another child.
“The action did not relate to any behaviour by the individual towards a child,” they said.
“We have zero tolerance for the non-compliance to our internal policies, no matter how trivial they sound to external parties.”
Brown was also subject to two misconduct investigations while he was working at G8, both of which found the non-sexual claims involving children were substantiated.
He was suspended and then resigned after the second investigation. Both incidents came after the alleged abuse for which he has been charged.
The parents of about 2000 children who crossed paths with Brown have been told to get them tested for infectious diseases.
His work history was updated this week to include four new centres.
Investigators have blamed delays on gathering information on his employment on a lack of centralised records, revealing they had to get search warrants to obtain handwritten records, shift rosters and other critical data.
Federal and state jurisdictions have promised to fast-track a national register for childcare workers, after it was discovered Brown had worked at 24 facilities since 2017.
New laws to strip dodgy childcare centres of federal funding and other changes will be introduced by the government when parliament resumes, however the Victorian coalition is concerned that may not be enough to prevent abuse.
“The government must ensure its proposed legislation improves safety and removes the risk of this ever happening again,” early learning spokesperson Zoe McKenzie said.
Poor record keeping and information sharing in sectors dealing with children were key issues highlighted in the 2017 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
The commission’s recommendations included improving teacher and worker registrations, improving the quality of institutional record keeping, the ability to exchange information between facilities and for states and territories to keep better track of workers employed in their jurisdictions.
While all nine governments in Australia accepted the recommendations, it’s been difficult to get them to act, former royal commissioner Robert Fitzgerald said.
“Ten years on from our recommendations around information sharing and record keeping, the job has not yet been done and it has not been done because the nine governments of Australia have not committed the willpower to get it done in a timely manner,” Mr Fitzgerald told AAP.
He accused some states and territories of being particularly slow in implementing significant recommendations.
“These are all manageable. These are all achievable and my disappointment is that progress has been made, but the job should have been done,” Mr Fitzgerald said.
The former commissioner said every gap left in safeguarding the sector meant children were put at risk.
Adequate record keeping and information sharing can inform subsequent employers of a history of concern, not necessarily convictions, and can provide authorities with an insight into any patterns of abuse.
But the former commissioner warned that workers’ rights can’t be abandoned where complaints or criminal action have not been substantiated.
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