Former childcare worker, Ashley Paul Griffith, often termed “one of Australia’s worst paedophiles” has been sentenced to a life in prison for raping and sexually abusing almost 70 girls. 

The culprit confessed to 307 offences he committed at childcare centres throughout the Australian state of Queensland and overseas between 2003 and 2022. 

Dauntingly, his victims were aged between one and seven as Judge Paul Smith called the nature of the crimes “depraved”, and “horrendous” and added, “there was a significant breach of trust”. 

According to the BBC, Griffith is accused of abusing at least two dozen children in the state of New South Wales as well as Italy. 

He was first arrested in August 2022 by the Australian Federal Police and the next year was charged with more than 1,600 child sex offences, most of which were later dropped. 

Investigations had found thousands of visuals of his abuse, which he had filmed and then uploaded onto the famous dark web with faces cropped but they managed to trace them back to Griffith because of a particular set of bedsheets caught in the background of some of the videos. 

The bedsheets were sold to childcare centres across Queensland.  

Griffith pleaded guilty to 28 accounts of rape, over 200 charges related to indecent treatment of a child and several related to recording and sharing online child exploitation material. 

Four of the girls recorded in his videos were from Pisa, Italy while 65 other victims were from 11 locations across Brisbane. 

Before the sentence was handed down, he court heard statements from some of the victims and their parents including two sisters who were abused by Griffith in kindergarten, one recalled the offender being her favourite teacher. 

"To find out what he was really doing was devastating [...] I don’t seem to be able to process it even now, because there’s a disconnect between what I remember and the reality," she said, according to The Courier Mail.

"I will never know what my life could have been like," another woman was quoted as saying, in an article by The Guardian Australia.

"I can never know what it would have been to grow up unafraid of people,” she added. 

Parents shared their accounts telling the court of their horror when they discovered the abuse inflicted upon their children.

At the same time, some stated that they struggle to forgive themselves for trusting Griffith with their children. 

"(My daughter) loved you like an uncle and you used her like a toy," one said, according to News Corp Australia.

Another mother added that she was trying to keep the burden of the horrors from her daughter. 

"I cannot undo what you did to her body but will do everything I can to limit the damage to her mind," she said, according to The Courier Mail.