A child rapist was sentenced to life in prison for abusing nearly 70 girls.

Ashley Paul Griffiths, a former childcare worker often described as “one of Australia’s worst children”, has been sentenced to life in prison for raping and sexually abusing nearly 70 girls.

The offender admitted to 307 offenses between 2003 and 2022 at child care centers in the Australian state of Queensland and overseas.

Horrifyingly, his victims were aged between one and seven as Judge Paul Smith described the nature of the offenses as “deviant”, and “appalling”, adding, “there was a significant breach of trust”.

According to The BBCGriffith is accused of abusing at least two dozen children in the state of New South Wales as well as in Italy.

He was first arrested by the Australian Federal Police in August 2022 and the following year was charged with more than 1,600 child sex offences, most of which were later dropped.

The investigation found thousands of visuals of his abuse, which he filmed and then uploaded to the popular dark web with faces cropped out, but they were captured in the background of some of the videos because of a specific set of bed sheets. succeeded in making it back to Griffith. .

The bed sheets were sold to childcare centers in Queensland.

Griffith pleaded guilty to 28 counts of rape, more than 200 counts of indecency with a child and several counts of recording and sharing child exploitation material online.

Four of the girls recorded in his videos were from Pisa, Italy, while 65 other victims were from 11 locations in Brisbane.

Before sentencing, he heard statements from some of the victims and their parents, including two sisters who had been abused by Griffith in kindergarten, one recalling that the perpetrator was her favorite teacher.

“Finding out what he was really doing was devastating. […] I still can’t seem to process it, because there’s a disconnect between what I remember and reality.” Courier mail.

“I will never know what my life could have been like,” another woman was quoted as saying in one article. The Guardian Australia.

“I’ll never know what it was like to grow up not being afraid of people,” she added.

The parents shared their accounts and told the court of their horror when they discovered the abuse of their children.

At the same time, some said they struggled to forgive themselves for trusting Griffith with their children.

“(My daughter) loved you like an uncle and you used her like a toy,” one said, according to News Corporation Australia.

Another mother added that she was trying to take the burden of the horrors off her daughter.

“I can’t undo what you did to his body but I will do everything I can to limit the damage to his mind,” she said. Courier mail.