Elizabeth Ayika: Penrith childcare worker charged over ‘discipline’

A childcare worker who is appealing a conviction for assaulting a boy will face multiple fresh charges after authorities claimed to have found more evidence on the centre’s CCTV.

A Penrith childcare worker convicted of assaulting a young boy at a western Sydney facility has now been charged with “unreasonably disciplining” more children at the same centre.

Oluwanifemi Elizabeth Ayika, 33, is now being prosecuted by the Department of Education for 12 alleged offences against the children in her care last year, according to court records.

Ayika was convicted in court in June after police charged her with assaulting one boy from the same centre, whose mother said heard his cries from the next room.

She is appealing that conviction.

Elizabeth Ayika, 33.

The Department of Education, after viewing hours of CCTV footage, then charged her with mistreating several more children in the three day period she had been promoted at the centre.

Ayika had only been in the job for less than a week at the time.

One source with knowledge of the case said the Department charged Ayika for “every touch, pull or push on a child” they could see in the vision from the childcare centre.

She has been charged with 12 counts of “child subjected to unreasonable discipline by a staff member” and fronted Penrith Local Court on Monday where her case was adjourned for a hearing later this year.

A CCTV still of the incident which led to her being convicted of assault.

Ayika has been in Australia since 2015 after studying medicine in Ukraine.

In June, Ayika was sentenced to a 12 month Community Corrections Order with a conviction for a charge of common assault, which she pleaded guilty to.

On Monday, Ayika was also permitted by a Judge in the Downing Centre District Court to appeal that conviction.

The court heard the conviction appeal would only allow her to submit a mental health application, after her defence team claimed they had new evidence linking a diagnosed mental illness to the offending.

Ayika leaving Downing Centre Local Court.

Her lawyer Fahim Khan told the court she has a “shift in attitude and personality” after seeking treatment.

Mr Khan said she had previously claimed in the Local Court that failures to have her trained partly led her to grabbing a young boy but “now accepts and realises what she has done is wrong”.

“She had a duty of care … She is apologetic,” Mr Khan said.

Judge Tanya Smith SC accepted there were competing public interests, both in rehabilitating Ms Ayika and also in having the proper functioning of a childcare centre.

She said it appeared Ms Ayika had significantly breached trust in her role as a childcare worker.