The secret complaint and leaked files from childcare chains where alleged paedophile worked

A complaint that educators were being left alone with children was made at a Point Cook childcare centre at the same time police allege accused paedophile Joshua Brown was sexually abusing babies and toddlers there.

The secret complaint sent to the childcare watchdog was obtained by this masthead along with a trove of internal documents from the two big childcare chains where the 26-year-old worked: G8 and Affinity.

Joshua Brown is alleged to have abused eight children who attended the Creative Garden Early Learning Centre in Point Cook between April 2022 and January 2023.Credit:

The leaked documents also reveal that the second centre at the heart of the ongoing police investigation into Brown – Affinity’s Papilio in Essendon – was on a Department of Education watch list just months before Brown was arrested.

An investigation by this masthead can also reveal that Affinity uses a GPS-enabled app to track employees’ movements to the minute, but the company led police on a wild goose chase by handing over incorrect records on Brown’s movement across its centres.

Detectives allege Brown abused eight toddlers and babies at G8’s Creative Garden Early Learning Centre in Point Cook between April 2022 and January 2023. Police claim he filmed them and sent images to another man. Four of the six days on which Brown is charged with abusing children there, including allegations of rape and contaminating food with bodily fluids, were after the complaint was made.

A student on placement, who did not wish to be identified to protect their employment, raised fears for the safety of children at Creative Garden in August 2022.

They sent a complaint to the Victorian Department of Education, obtained by this masthead, outlining concerns about supervision failures at the centre.

“It wasn’t uncommon for a child to [wander] into the empty room next door without anyone noticing,” the complaint read. “Or for children to be playing with water in the bathrooms unsupervised also, or one educator to be left alone outside with over 20 children during rest time.

“I am worried about the safety of the children at this service as well as the staff who are not being supported very well.”

Affinity CEO Tim Hickey shared photos from his visit to Papilio Early Learning Essendon while Brown worked at the centre.

The complaint does not mention Brown, or any accusations of inappropriate sexual behaviour, but the student remembers him.

G8 said the department informed it of the complaint but following a review advised that no further action would be taken. The Department of Education refused to respond to questions.

The student came forward after Brown was charged in May with more than 73 counts of child abuse.

“I feel sick,” they said. “The department never followed up and when they called me they turned it around on me and asked why I didn’t do anything. I was a 21-year-old student, what could I do?”

Brown remained at the centre until February 2024, quitting around the time that the second of two internal investigations, unrelated to his criminal charges, found he had grabbed children aggressively. G8 reported those investigations to government authorities, but regulators chose not to escalate the matter.

Brown had been fired from at least three other providers, and had glaring errors on his resume, as this masthead has previously revealed, but his working with children check was never reviewed and he continued to work at centres across the state.

Just weeks before the alleged discovery of child abuse material led police to swoop on Brown in May, the chief executive of Affinity was touring the Essendon centre where Brown then worked, it can be revealed.

In an internal message to Affinity staff at the time, CEO Tim Hickey said of his visit to the Papilio centre: “6 months ago we were on a Department watch list at this centre” but “the Department are now happy”.

Among the new team – who Hickey said had “created a settled, compliant centre ready for growth” – was Brown. Soon after, detectives would appear at that centre’s door with search warrants to investigate suspected abuse at the Essendon centre.

At the time, police were on a frantic search to track Brown’s work history.

Affinity CEO Tim Hickey message to staff after visit to Papilio Early Learning in Essendon, shortly before Brown’s arrest

“I had the pleasure of meeting [employee 1] and [employee 2] from Essendon. 6 months ago we were on a Department watch list at this centre and the new team have taken charge and created a settled, compliant centre that is now ready for growth. They have done so well that the Department are now happy with a bit of extra signage and a local marketing campaign, I think this centre can rocket on Occ!”

Affinity previously told this masthead that, given the urgency of the police investigation launched into Brown then, the company handed over its payroll data first to account for the educator’s work history.

But four of the 12 Affinity centres where Brown worked were missing from that list, compiled in secret over several weeks before police went public with the Brown allegations on July 1. Also missing were a full six months that Brown had worked at the Essendon centre – crucial to ongoing abuse investigations – while another centre where Brown was listed at for six months had never employed him at all.

Police said their investigation had been complicated “due to childcare providers not having centralised records”. Detectives were forced to sift through handwritten notes in order to determine which children might have been exposed to Brown.

Current and former Affinity staff say they cannot fathom how Affinity could have got Brown’s work history so wrong, given employee movements are tracked via GPS on an app directly connected to payroll and rostering.

Lateness is logged to the minute and managers are encouraged to review the data for inconsistencies, such as overpayment, according to screenshots of staff communications and internal policies, seen by this masthead.

This was in force while Brown worked at Affinity – from at least 2023 until his arrest in May this year – and also applies to casual staff filling in across various centres as relief workers.

One current Affinity educator said: “Affinity managers have to approve you’re working at a particular location for you to be assigned the shift. If you don’t clock on there, you don’t get paid. The GPS locator is so sensitive I’ve had to do one step to the left and stick out my arm to clock on properly.”

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Affinity clarified that it had complied with search warrants seeking Brown’s employment records by supplying information from its core payroll records before handing over further details, including access to the GPS app, once the company was briefed in full by police about the case on July 1.

The childcare giant said it was committed to transparency and co-operating with authorities in every possible way.

G8 has a similar centralised system logging staff locations, it confirmed to this masthead, “because we’re required to keep track of our people”, though it left off one of its centres which Brown attended for several hours from the initial work history provided to police.

Cheyanne Carter, a former senior Affinity manager turned industry consultant, said the company’s centralised payroll data should have enabled it to quickly and accurately access Brown’s full work history, including locations.

“It doesn’t explain why months and whole centres where [Brown] worked have been left out. It’s bizarre.”

Affinity CEO Tim Hickey – who frequently signs off staff communiques with: “To Affinity and Beyond!” – did not respond to requests for an interview.

The company did not say why its Essendon centre was on a Department of Education watch list, under which centres not performing to national standards can face enforcement action. Affinity said no regulatory action had been taken and the centre was no longer under monitoring by early 2024, the year Brown joined. “The improved performance speaks to the sustained hard work and dedication of the team on the ground,” it said.

Professor Leah Bromfield, who oversaw research for the royal commission into child sexual abuse, slammed large national providers for not keeping centralised records logging locations of educators, and said she was shocked that distressed families had been left with no information on their children’s exposure to alleged predators.

It was crucial that red flags were picked up early, she said, even those not overtly sexual, because “with predatory perpetrators that’s their way in”.

“They’re testing children’s response to inappropriately touching them on their leg and arm to see which children are not reacting,” she said. “But they’re also testing their colleagues around them, testing the workplace. It starts with these red flags … pushing boundaries … and progressively moves up until they feel quite safe that they’re not going to be detected there.”

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