Man accused of being Australia’s most prolific paedophile named as former childcare worker

The man accused of being Australia’s most prolific paedophile in history has been named, after a change in the country’s sex offender laws.

Ashley Paul Griffith, 45, a former childcare worker, has been accused of abusing 91 girls over a 15-year period.

He is facing 1,623 charges after being arrested in 2022, which include 136 counts of rape and 110 counts of having sex with a child under 10.

Griffith, from Gold Coast, had previously been able to remain anonymous over the alleged offences across 10 daycare centres in Australia and Italy between 2007 and 2022.

He was detained following an eight-year-long investigation, police said, with bedsheets they saw in online child abuse material helping to track him down.

Court documents, seen by The Australian, allege Griffith recorded the acts on phones and cameras, before storing them in files, with further allegations he raped two girls at a centre more than 24 times each.

Charge sheets also show he could have abused seven different girls in a single month.

Griffith had worked as a director of a childcare facility in Brisbane, with the first of the allegations referring to incidents at the centre in 2007, continuing in Pisa, Italy where he worked until 2013.

He then worked in Sydney until 2017. Police said he had the required qualifications needed to work in childcare.

New laws passed in September in Australia mean journalists are allowed to name alleged sexual assault offenders before trials begin.

Griffith will appear in court on 6 November.