Parents tell of sleepless nights during ‘traumatic’ wait for child’s STI test results

A parent from one of the Melbourne daycare centres where accused paedophile Joshua Dale Brown worked says the wait for STI test results for his four-year-old child has been “traumatic”.

The father, who asked not to be named nor for his child’s centre to be identified, said he and his partner have been unable to work or sleep while they endured one of “the most traumatic events I’ve ever experienced”.

Childcare worker Joshua Brown has been charged with child sexual abuse offences.

He urged other parents who had children at centres in Melbourne and Geelong where Brown had worked since 2017 to demand the care logs for their children from the childcare operators, which would provide more clarity about what contact Brown had with their children.

Brown is accused of abusing eight children, aged between five months and two years, while he worked at the Creative Garden Early Learning Centre in Point Cook between April 2022 and January 2023.

The 26-year-old, who is in custody, will be brought to court in September to face more than 70 charges, including sexually penetrating a child under 12, attempting to sexually penetrate a child under 12, sexually assaulting a child under 16 and producing child abuse material. He has also been charged with recklessly contaminating goods to cause alarm or anxiety, which relates to allegations he used bodily fluid to tamper with food.

Police are investigating allegations of further offending at the Papilio centre in Essendon, where Brown worked up until his arrest in May, while another man linked to Brown, 36-year-old Michael Simon Wilson, has been charged with dozens of sex crimes against children, including rape, that are unrelated to the early learning sector.

Michael Simon Wilson has been accused of child sex offences.

The exposure of Brown’s alleged offending prompted health authorities to notify 2600 families and call for the testing of 1200 children and forced the state government to rush out a major overhaul of safety protocols for Victoria’s daycare centres.

The father, from Melbourne’s western suburbs, told this masthead he had been frantically searching for answers from national childcare giant G8 – which operates several of the centres Brown worked at – after the family received a notification in the mail about the horrific allegations.

“A lot of parents are wondering – if you are a concerned parent, you are within your rights to demand details of your child’s care from G8,” he said.

“They have details of your child’s activities each day, including which person did what, a sleep log, toilet and nappy change log.”

Police at Papilio Early Learning Essendon on Keilor Road in Essendon on Tuesday.Credit: Justin McManus

He said he and his partner scrolled through years of notifications from the childcare centre on a phone app, which notified them about their child’s daily activities, to confirm that Brown had not been in contact with their four-year-old.

He said the alleged perpetrator was not listed among the staff members in contact with their child.

“We were praying all night; I kept calling them 24/7,” he said. “I can’t sleep as a father and a parent. I hope other parents affected can go get their justice.”

He said the government needed to do more to communicate with and support families in different languages, as he knew some parents from different cultural backgrounds who were finding it difficult to understand what they needed to do.

He also said parents were considering class action against the childcare provider, but that his immediate focus was the return of his child’s test results.

The man said he and his partner tried to keep things as normal as possible when they took their child for blood testing on the recommendation of health authorities. When they reached the pathology lab, they recognised many other parents from their centre taking their own children for testing.

“It’s heartbreaking,” he said. “It’s a traumatic event. One of the most traumatic events I’ve ever experienced.”

He questioned how Brown was allowed to work in the childcare system for so long without any red flags.

A children’s occupational therapy clinic in Footscray said on Wednesday it had terminated Brown’s contract after five weeks because he was “not a good fit”.

DOTS Occupational Therapy for Children director Hannah Dunn confirmed Brown worked at the clinic for 26 days from March to April last year.

Dunn told this masthead Brown was not part of the clinical occupational therapy team and that he only lasted a few weeks at the service.

“We terminated his contract, as he was not a good fit for our practice, within five weeks of commencing,” she said.

Outside the Only About Children daycare centre in Williamstown, where Brown worked between October 2020 and March 2021, the shock of the allegations remained palpable among parents dropping their children off on Thursday morning.

Few of these parents were sending children to Only About Children while Brown was employed there, but those who spoke to this masthead were still shaken.

Andrea Shaw was minding her infant grandchild while her daughter dropped her three-year-old son into the daycare.

“How can you know?” Shaw said. “For that split-second [my daughter] saw [the news], she couldn’t remember what year her son was born.”

Her daughter, Natalie Shaw, said three women from her mothers’ group are contemplating pulling their children out of childcare altogether, despite their centres being unaffected by the crisis surrounding Brown.

The Williamstown centre sent through emails detailing their safety policies the day the news broke, she added.

Since finding out about the allegations against Brown, she said she wanted to talk more about body safety to her sons.

“My younger son will start childcare at the end of the year, I’m more worried about him because he won’t be verbal or anything,” Shaw said.

Brown previously worked at Only About Children childcare centre in Williamstown.Credit: Cassandra Morgan

Some of the childcare centre’s workers remembered Brown, but Shaw said she was reluctant to ask much about him, for fear of upsetting the alleged offender’s former colleagues.

Other parents at the centre were reticent to talk about Brown on Thursday.

“Obviously, it’s disgusting - I have the same thoughts as every parent,” one parent said.

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