By Cassandra Morgan, Carla Jaeger, Caroline Schelle, Alexander Darling and Noel Towell
Plans are under way to test 1200 children for sexually transmitted infections after a Victorian childcare worker was charged with 70 sex offences against eight children in his care, including child rape.
Joshua Dale Brown, a 26-year-old Point Cook man who worked in 20 daycare centres in Melbourne’s suburbs and Geelong over the past eight years, is accused of abusing children aged between five months and two years at the Creative Garden Early Learning Centre in Point Cook between April 2022 and January 2023.
Joshua Brown.
Thousands of families were left distraught after being contacted by the Health Department on Tuesday as police investigated potential further offending by Brown at a centre in Essendon.
Two giant national private sector childcare chains – Affinity Education and G8 Education – who operate multiple centres where the accused man worked, defended their hiring practices, saying they had followed the required security protocols.
The case is also a fresh blow for the embattled childcare sector after child sex abuse scandals in Sydney and Brisbane, devastating stories of abuse and neglect in for-profit centres around the country, corporate collapses and accusations of financial misconduct.
The Creative Garden Early Learning Centre in Point Cook, where the accused man had worked.Credit: Justin McManus
The Victorian government was already reviewing the state’s Working With Children Check system and has now ordered the early childhood regulator to investigate the conduct of the childcare operators for whom Brown worked.
Both the federal government and opposition expressed their shock at the news on Tuesday and called for action to reform the childcare sector.
The state’s police force and health and education departments set up a co-ordinated response before publicly announcing Brown’s arrest and his alleged offences on Tuesday, seven weeks after he was detained.
But by noon on Tuesday, parents were reporting long delays on hold on a dedicated support hotline set up by the Health Department, with a parent of one child at the Point Cook centre reporting he had waited more than 1½ hours.
Joshua Brown.
There were angry scenes on Tuesday outside some of the centres where Brown worked, with a Point Cook mother, Sally, whose surname The Age has decided not to use, saying she was horrified when she received an email that morning notifying her of the case.
The mother went to the Creative Garden Early Learning Centre this morning to collect her young son after receiving the email.
“I was so mad, I was so angry,” she told reporters.
Sally said she was familiar with the alleged abuser when he worked at the centre and that the news of his arrest and charges had left her feeling frightened and guilty.
Sally, whose son attended a centre in Point Cook where the man worked, spoke to the press on Tuesday morning.Credit: Justin McManus
“Now I’m blaming myself that ... maybe I shouldn’t work,” she said.
“What can you do, because you think it’s the safest place to drop them, but no, it’s not.”
Brown worked at 20 childcare centres between January 2017 and May 2025, including in some of Melbourne’s west and north-west suburbs, Geelong and Bundoora in the city’s north-east.
He faces charges including sexually penetrating a child under 12 years of age, attempting to sexually penetrate a child under 12, sexually assaulting a child under 16, producing child abuse material and transmitting child abuse material, police said.
The “proactive” investigation was triggered by the alleged discovery of child abuse material allegedly in his possession which led detectives to Brown’s employment.
The alleged offender has no criminal record, was not previously known to police and held a valid Working with Children Check, which has since been cancelled.
G8 Education, which operates the Creative Garden centre, said its former employee had been safety-vetted in accordance with the required protocols.
“Aligned with G8 Education’s commitment to child safety and protection, during the former team member’s employment, all required employment and background checks, including Working With Children Checks (WWCC), were current in accordance with legal and regulatory requirements,” a company spokesperson said.
G8 is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange where its share price fell about 5 per cent on Tuesday. Affinity, which operates centres where Brown also worked, is owned by Sydney private equity powerhouse, Quadrant, which has reportedly been looking to sell the group in recent years.
Affinity Education Group, published a statement saying it had “a zero-tolerance approach to any form of abuse or misconduct involving children”.
“The safety and wellbeing of every child in our care is – and always will be – our highest priority,” the statement read.
One of the last day care centres Brown worked at before his arrest was the Affinity Education-operated Papilio Childcare Centre in Essendon, in Melbourne’s inner north-west, where detectives arrived mid-morning as part of their investigation into Brown. Parents outside the centre told of their fury at the handling of the situation, particularly the long waits on the support hotline and the lack of information coming from the individual centres.
Police at the Papilio Early Learning Centre in Essendon on Tuesday.Credit: Justin McManus
Another parent arriving at the Point Cook centre on Tuesday to remove his child after hearing the news, and who did not wish to be named, said he was furious, and that he had received no information from Creative Garden and described the Working With Children Check system as a “f---ing farce”.
Another parent, whose child no longer attended, turned up at the Point Cook centre because the hotline was unable to take his call. He said his child previously attended during the time Brown worked there, but the centre didn’t provide any information.
The decision to mass-test children – at testing centres across the metro area – came after Brown tested positive for an STI, according to two police sources not authorised to comment.
The Health Department contacted about 2600 families, parents and carers by text, email and letters, recommending that about 1200 children undergo testing for infectious diseases, chief health officer Dr Christian McGrath said on Tuesday.
“Families and the wider community can be reassured that the infections that the children were potentially exposed to can be treated with antibiotics, and there’s no broader public health risk to the community,” McGrath said.
The letter was sent to affected families on Tuesday, stressing that the testing was “highly precautionary”.
“Records indicate your child was enrolled at one of these centres during the time this person was working there,” it read.
“At this stage, there is no evidence to suggest that your child has been offended against.
“Out of an abundance of caution, and following consultation with public health experts, we are recommending that some children be tested for infectious diseases due to a possible exposure while in the childcare centre.”
The seriousness of the situation was underscored by the senior officials who lined up at Tuesday morning’s announcement at police headquarters in the CBD; Premier Jacinta Allan, flanked by her ministers for police and children, the acting chief of police and chief health officer.
Allan became emotional as she said she was “sickened” by the allegations of abuse, as the government pledged to do all it could to support the children and families affected by the case.
Melbourne charges follow other childcare abuse cases
Queensland was shocked in 2022 by the case of Ashley Paul Griffith, a childcare worker unmasked as one of Australia’s worst paedophiles, who pleaded guilty to 28 counts of rape against girls primarily aged three to five, as well as numerous other offences, at childcare centres in Queensland between 2007 and 2022.
Two male childcare workers in Sydney were charged with child sex abuse offences within days of each other in October, and the industry was rocked again by a series of explosive allegations early this year of neglect and abuse, with some of Affinity’s Sydney centres firmly in the spotlight.
The spectacular collapse of the national Genius group of centres and the failure of HEI Schools, heightened the sense of crisis in the industry, despite the predicted $16 billion which will be pumped into the sector this year through federal government subsidies.
Brown will face court on September 15.
Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732).
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