WARNING: sensitive content.
“Australia’s worst paedophile”, Ashley Paul Griffith, has been charged with more than 200 child abuse offences in NSW after being extradited from Queensland this week.
The 48-year-old was jailed for life in Queensland in November 2024 after he pleaded guilty to more than 300 child sexual offences against nearly 70 victims.
Griffith admitted to assaulting and filming young girls for years while working at Queensland child care centres.
NSW Police allege the 48-year-old man sexually abused 23 children, aged between one and five, between July 2014 and December 2017 while employed as a childcare worker in Sydney’s Inner West.
At 8.25am on Friday, Griffith was arrested and charged with 202 offences.
The charges included 68 counts of sexual intercourse with a child under 10, 42 counts of aggravated sexual intercourse with child under 10 – under authority, 69 counts of aggravated indecent assault (10 years), and 23 counts of produce child abuse material (10 years).
On Wednesday, Griffith was transferred from Wolston Correctional Centre’s maximum security unit in Queensland to NSW.
Queensland Corrections Minister Laura Gerber said he was handed to authorities at Tweed Heads.
“Australia’s worst paedophile, Ashley Paul Griffith, was successfully extradited to NSW this morning,” she said.
“What Griffith did to children was abhorrent. He is a monster.”
Suggestions he should be taken to Sydney by private jet were rejected in favour of road transport, Ms Gerber said.
“I will say what most Queenslanders are thinking right now: I hope he hit every pothole on the way,” she said.
His prisoner transfer was approved by a Brisbane magistrate earlier in the month with victims’ supporters yelling insults at the convicted rapist as he stood in the dock for the decision.
The transfer came after a failed attempt in June to reduce his Queensland sentence.
His lawyers had argued the 27-year non-parole period he was handed for hundreds of offences committed on 69 young children spanning almost 20 years was ‘‘manifestly excessive’‘.
He was remanded in custody and expected to appear in court on Friday.
- with AAP
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
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