Monster pedophile Ashley Paul Griffith’s MO laid bare at hearing

A sentencing hearing for serial pedophile Ashley Paul Griffith has revealed how he kept his offending against scores of little girls a secret.

Ashley Paul Griffith has pleaded guilty to 307 offences.

Pedophile Ashley Paul Griffith lured his young victims to secret corners of the childcare centres where he worked, undressed and raped them and even brazenly filmed his horrific abuse on a camera mounted on a tripod, later insisting he was “not a psychopath” because he “adored these children”.

A two-day sentencing hearing – which started yesterday – was told horrific details of the abuse and offending Griffith inflicted on 65 young girls at 11 Brisbane childcare centres over a 20-year period.

Griffith, 46, will learn his fate today after pleading guilty to 307 offences, including 28 counts of rape, 190 counts of indecently treating a child in his care, 67 counts of making child-exploitation material, 15 counts of maintaining a sexual relationship with a child and various other offences against children.

He is also facing prosecution in NSW and Italy relating to alleged victims at childcare centres. Griffith is alleged to have sexually abused another 27 in those jurisdictions.

The court heard investigators from the Australian Federal Police tracked down Griffith after linking him to material found on a global dark net site called The Love Zone (TLZ), dismantled by Queensland police in 2014.

Ashley Paul Griffith in court on Thursday. Illustration: Brett Lethbridge

Victim identification specialists from the AFP had spent years attempting to identify the children in the images, and in 2022 spotted a brand on a blanket and tracked it to a Brisbane childcare centre, the court heard.

From there, they identified Griffith and discovered he had been abusing young girls as far back as 2003.

Director of Public Prosecutions Todd Fuller KC said the extent and severity of Griffith’s actions was difficult to comprehend.

“The true horror of the offending is hard to capture in words,” he said.

He told the court Griffith groomed his victims – some of whom developed attachments to him – and used that influence to lure them to secret areas of childcare centres where he could abuse them.

The court heard he molested some of the girls while they were sleeping and distracted others with electronic devices.

Mr Fuller said that in one instance of abuse, the child told Griffith to stop as it was “yucky”, and he mocked her response. He said the recording was in direct contrast to claims Griffith made during his psychiatric assessment where he said he stopped the abuse whenever a child requested that he did.

Ashley Paul Griffith’s defence barrister Sarah Cartledge outside court on Thursday. Picture: John Gass

The court heard that police found videos and image montages and photographs splic­ed together in the catalogue he’d captured of his prolific offending.

“His interest was not isolated to capturing the event but also reliving it, perhaps over and over again,” Mr Fuller said.

The court heard that at one childcare centre, Griffith captured two years of offending in 34 “interactions” with little girls – “including a recording of his touching a child’s (genital) area for 17 minutes and him being disturbed as he went to undo his pants”.

At another centre, a child was taken to the bathroom, stripped naked from the waist down and photographed by Griffith.

“This happened on a number of occasions with a number of the children and included stripping them completely naked,” Mr Fuller said.

He said Griffith used multiple devices – including a camera on a tripod – to capture his offending at childcare centres, including multiple instances of digital, oral and penile rape.

The court heard Griffith moved between childcare centres frequently in an effort to conceal his offending – and even near-misses did not deter him.

“He saved his recordings on to his devices so he could watch it again for his own sexual gratification,” Mr Fuller said.

Crown prosecutor Stephanie Gallagher and Director of Public Prosecutions Todd Fuller KC outside court on Thursday. Picture: John Gass

“He was methodical about this, saving the material in folders with the victims’ names, and naming folders consistent with the acts.”

A psychiatric report tendered to the court said that Griffith had a pedophilic disorder specific to young girls aged under 12.

It said he minimised his offending and had a significant lack of insight into the damage he’d caused.

The court heard Griffith claimed the children enjoyed his abuse, but admitted he had tried to quit his job several times over the strain of worrying about getting caught.

He told the psychiatrist he knew there was a perception he was a psychopath but that was “not the case at all”.

“I adored these children,” Griffith said.

The court also heard from a large number of parents as well as children he’d abused who read harrowing victim impact statements.

One mother asked that Crown prosecutor Stephanie Gallagher read her statement to the court so her daughter would never know her connection to this trial.

But she included details about her interactions with Griffith so that he would know who she was, the damage he had done and the trust he had broken.

“As the (police) officers revealed what you had done to our little girl, I howled and rocked and drank glass after glass of water to stop my mouth from going bone dry with the shock,” the mother wrote in her statement.

“My husband and I decided that day to carry the knowledge and burden of these horrific details alone in the hope that we can protect our daughter from further trauma.

Ashley Paul Griffith in court on Thursday. Illustration: Brett Lethbridge

“When it rained heavily, I walked for kilometres so that I could howl and sob and scream without drawing any attention.

“Otherwise, I lay on the floor at home and cried for hours at a time.”

The mother recounted an occasion where she had taken her daughter to a hospital emergency room with a laceration on her vagina and blood in her underpants.

A doctor had told her the cut had most likely come from a fingernail.

“You said she must have slipped on some equipment in the centre,” the mother said. “The shock of how blind I was to her repeated torment was overwhelming.”

One of Griffith’s victims addressed him as she spoke of the damage he had done to her and others.

“This horrible thing didn’t happen to just me but my sister as well, and so many other little girls, too,” she said.

”To know such cruelty has occurred to such innocent little girls, to know it had gone on for so long, it’s truly painful.

”I know what happened can’t be fixed. I’m still learning to understand it, but I hope by sharing my experience, I have helped in some way.”

Mr Fuller asked Judge Paul Smith to sentence Griffith to life with a non-parole period of 30 years, while defence barrister Sarah Cartledge asked for a head sentence of 25 to 30 years with a non-parole component of 15 years.

The sentencing will continue on Friday.