“Australia’s Worst Pedophile” in Prison. He Also Worked in a School in Pisa

From Australia comes a terrible story of pedophilia that has also affected Italy. A former nursery school teacher has pleaded guilty to raping and sexually abusing dozens of girls entrusted to his care for over 20 years. His name is Ashley Paul Griffith, he is 46 years old and confessed to having committed 307 crimes between 2003 and 2022 in nursery schools in Brisbane, but also in Italy where – Reuters writes – he worked for a short time in a school in Pisa.

Most of Griffith’s victims were under the age of 12, and the charges against him lasted more than two hours in a Queensland court, with police describing him as one of Australia’s worst child sex offenders. The charges against him included 28 counts of rape, 190 counts of indecent exposure, 67 counts of producing child exploitation material, four counts of producing such material and one count of distributing it.

Several of his victims and their families were in court on Monday, ABC News reported, with some parents crying as their daughters’ names were read. One mother, seeing images of the daycare where the monster worked, said, “This is a room of horrors,” while the father of the same child said he couldn’t believe Griffith had gotten away with crimes for 20 years. “When our daughter grows up,” he continued, “we’ll take it slow, but from now on, this is something we’re going to have to deal with for the rest of our lives.”

Griffith was arrested in August 2022 by the Australian Federal Police, after thousands of photographs and videos of his abuse were found on the dark web ten years ago. The investigation was launched in Queensland and carried out by Task Force Agos, a special team that deals with similar cases. Despite his face being obscured in the videos, investigators were able to trace the man thanks to a particular set of sheets, produced specifically by a company, which can be seen in those same videos.

The Australian Federal Police believe he recorded everything on his phones. He allegedly did so in his first experience in Brisbane between 2007 and 2013, then in Sydney between 2014 and 2017 and again in Brisbane between 2018 and 2022. Griffith remains in prison, awaiting sentencing.