A raid, a horror discovery and the distressing race to identify childcare victims

When detectives discovered a cache of child abuse material allegedly in the hands of a Melbourne childcare worker, it started the clock ticking on an unprecedented response from police and public health authorities.

After raiding the home of 26-year-old Joshua Dale Brown in May, police faced the daunting and distressing task of trying to identify eight children, some as young as five months old, whom it is alleged he had abused and filmed.

Joshua Dale Brown, 26, has been accused of child sex abuse.

They also tracked Brown’s work history, fearing the allegations against him at one centre in the city’s west may be only the tip of the iceberg. They uncovered that he had worked at 20 childcare centres across the city since 2017.

Sex crimes detectives have now focused their attention on Brown’s time at a centre in Essendon, where they are investigating whether abuse occurred, and police are urging anyone with further information to come forward.

For weeks, police and the Health Department grappled with how to reveal the horrifying allegations to the families involved, ready the health system for a large-scale child-testing regimen and reassure the wider community.

The families at the affected childcare centres wouldn’t find out about the investigation until police and the government revealed the allegations on Tuesday morning. Texts and emails arrived in their inboxes shortly after public press releases were sent out.

Joshua Brown pictured at a childcare centre where he worked in Essendon from February until days before his arrest in May.

It was a “proactive investigation”, police Crime Command Acting Commander Janet Stevenson said, arising from detective work rather than a complaint. As soon as police discovered the alleged abuse material, Brown was arrested and remanded into custody, she said, and he had been co-operating with police.

“We didn’t have a victim for quite some time,” Stevenson said. “We had to make sure we had the right victims. It was difficult enough to go and tell parents this had happened to their child, but imagine if we got the wrong child.”

Brown’s appearance in court in May attracted no attention, though he was charged with 70 counts related to the alleged sexual abuse of minors, including sexual penetration, producing child abuse material for use through a carriage service and recklessly contaminating goods to cause alarm or anxiety. Brown had no criminal history and possessed a valid Working With Children Check.

A cone of silence soon fell around the looming scandal after magistrate Matthew White issued a blanket suppression order preventing any publication of the charges.

Victoria Police and the Office of Public Prosecutions had initially applied for the gag order to protect the integrity of the investigation, as they began the painstaking work of informing the affected families.

At this point, no one but the police and the Health Department were aware of what had allegedly taken place between April 2022 and January 2023 at the Creative Garden Early Learning Centre in Point Cook. It remains unknown when the childcare operator was notified.

But behind the scenes, as the scale of the alleged offending continued to grow – along with the need to test more than 1200 children for sexually transmitted diseases – a decision was made that the issue had become too big to contain.

Brown had tested positive for a sexually transmitted disease and police suspected he could have exposed unknown numbers of children.

Once the families of the eight identified alleged victims were notified last week, police and the Health Department prepared to mobilise ahead of what was expected to be a massive public reaction.

The Creative Garden Early Learning Centre in Point Cook, where the accused man had worked.Credit: Justin McManus

Ninety minutes after the suppression order was revoked, police and the state government, including the premier, called a joint press conference to deliver the shocking news. Police also took the highly unusual step of releasing the alleged offender’s name publicly, a measure taken to ensure that other childcare workers were not unfairly suspected.

“This is unique,” Acting Commander Stevenson said on Tuesday. “It is very important to ensure that every parent out there that has a child in childcare knows who he is and where he worked.”

No other childcare workers are suspected of being involved and police said they are not suggesting abuse took place at all the centres where Brown worked.

While Stevenson said she was not aware of any formal complaints previously made against Brown, the ongoing investigation would uncover any.

Very little is known about Brown, who was easily recognisable to parents by his distinctive arm tattoos and ginger-coloured hair, which he often dyed different colours. He lived in a rented townhouse in Point Cook with a male roommate and a cat. The home is now vacant. He had previously worked at large childcare chains G8 Education and Affinity Education and done short-stint relief work at other centres.

On Tuesday, as detectives arrived at the Essendon Papilio Childcare Centre, families picking up their children were still learning the news.

The 26-year-old had worked at the centre from February up until days before his arrest on May 12.

At the Point Cook centre where the alleged offending is said to have taken place, one mother said she had seen Brown on staff multiple times, always with a smile on his face. She said the thought of what could have gone on would haunt her forever.

The grandparent of a child at another centre where Brown worked in Werribee said staff there didn’t even know about the charges on Tuesday morning.

“The childcare centre only found out today,” he said. “So how can it have been investigated properly if no one’s been and spoken to the childcare centre where he’s worked? Police have had him [in custody] for weeks.”

Families who called the dedicated hotline now set up to handle the case reported hours-long waits on Tuesday.

One mother, whose children attend one of the Werribee centres, waited 2½ hours. She remembered Brown from an after-school pick-up.

“He was very dishevelled looking,” she said. “So I sort of took a mental note of it and found it very odd that he would have been hired.”

With Caroline Schelle

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.