I am the mother of a Canberra child who was indecently assaulted by their male childcare carer while attending a childcare centre in Canberra, Australia, between Feb – April 2022. Since the disclosure 3 other children have made statements with police. The carer has since been found guilty of his crime by a jury in the Supreme Court and has been sentenced to 18 months in prison. He was only able to be tried for one incident on one particular day, due to the failings from government agencies. The failings I'm referring too are now backed by the review of child safety arrangements under the NQF that just came out in December.

A child safety policy must be implemented which all centres can follow, including but not limited to:

• Mandatory external protective education program in place, in particular the Safe4Kids program must be taught from the age of 3yrs. This program saved my child's abuse from getting worse, it taught them to identify unsafe touch and to speak up and tell an adult.
• Stronger unannounced inspections, making the regulatory authority actually leave their office. 
• Mandatory and timely parent notification of serious safety incidents for children directly effected.
• Mandatory ratio per room not under roof
• National tracking of educator workplaces
• Random drug testing, GP Mental Health checks every few years. 
• Character checks to be implemented as part of the hiring process.
• Mandatory Police Checks, and/or a Mandatory International Police Check if the employee is not a citizen. Holding a WWVP card is not proof that you have no criminal history. 
• WWVP registration must be consistent with other states to avoid confusion, we must also have a database that works together with other states to prevent predators from flying under the radar. 

The government must hold an inquiry into the failures I encountered after the disclosure, including but not limited too:

• Why the Police, WWVP, & CECA, kept blocking important information from each other, not once in the FOI did I see either of these agency working together to protect vulnerable children. 
• Why no one advised the centre to call police. Three weeks had passed after a very serious crime, and no one had called the police. I had to make multiple phone calls to different agencies till a job was made with police for my child to make their statement.
• Why CECA would advise the centre not to save the cctv for police,
• Why the centre wasn't investigated by the ombudsman reportable conduct before the centre was brought by another company.
• Why CECA didn't do their own investigation.
• Why it took 2 months for his WWVP check to be cancelled which put children at risk.  
• The childcare centre changed owners and their name after the offender was charged, so it was no longer their responsibility. This has meant no reportable conduct investigation could be done and the education department don't need to do anything either. If this is swept under the rug then this will happen again.  
• Parents whose children attended the centre during this time have not received any notification from the police or the centre’s director. No parents of children who were enrolled in my child's class have received notification. There was no notification given to the parents of children in the carers direct care. EDIT: Following a news article in the Nightly published in July 2025 that highlighted the center, additional victims have since come forward. However, they are currently unable to pursue legal action due to insufficient evidence.
• How was this man allowed to work with children. The offender disclosed two instances of unemployment, both owing to drug use. After the second period of unemployment, he secured employment at the childcare centre where the offence occurred. He had unmanaged schizophrenia, and bipolar. He had been smoking cannabis on a daily basis since 2016. He commenced using cocaine and oxycodone from 2016 and commenced using cocaine at the beginning of the trial. The Static-99R assessment tool indicated that he was at an “above average” risk of sexual re-offending. He is currently on a bridging visa.