Alleged childcare paedophile Joshua Dale Brown hit with more than 80 additional charges
Joshua Dale Brown was charged with an additional 83 offences on Thursday. (Facebook)
In short:
Police have laid an additional 80 charges against alleged Melbourne childcare paedophile Joshua Dale Brown.
An additional four alleged victims have been identified, but health officials say no children will require further health screening.
The newly identified alleged victims attended childcare centres in Point Cook, Williamstown and Keilor between March 2019 and February 2025.
Detectives have issued more than 80 additional charges against alleged Melbourne childcare paedophile Joshua Dale Brown.
Warning: This story contains details of alleged child sex offences which may distress some audience members.
Health officials say no children will require further testing as a result of the new charges and no new childcare centres have been identified as being of concern.
However, police say the new charges relate to an additional four alleged victims identified as part of their investigation into the 27-year-old, who was charged with 70 offences earlier in the year.
They say some of the new charges also relate to the initial eight alleged victims identified earlier this year.
The families of the four newly identified alleged victims have been notified and have been offered support.
Mr Brown was this morning charged with 83 additional offences including six counts of penetrating a child under 12, eight counts of producing child abuse material and 23 counts of using a carriage service to transmit child abuse material.
Other charges include:
- Two counts of sexual activity in the presence of a child
- Eight counts of sexual assault of a child under 16
- Two counts of attempted sexual penetration of a child under 12
- Two counts of common law assault
- Twelve counts of bestiality
- Reckless conduct endangering serious injury
- Encouraging a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity
- Two counts of possessing a drug of dependence
Victoria Police said the bestiality offences are part of a separate investigation unrelated to any childcare centres.
The additional four alleged victims identified by police were placed at Nino Early Learning Adventures in Point Cook in March 2019, Only About Children at Williamstown in December 2020 and February 2021 and Aussie Kindies Early Learning Centre in Keilor in February 2025.
Parents of children at impacted centres say they're still coming to terms with the charges. (ABC News: Alison Costelloe)
Affinity Education Group, which operates Aussie Kindies Early Learning Centre said it was "deeply distressed by the further charges laid today by Victorian Police against former employee Joshua Brown."
"One incident is one too many. No child or family should ever have to face this," a spokesperson for Affinity Group said.
"Since this matter arose in July this year, we have been and will continue to cooperate with Victorian Police to support their investigation."
In a statement, Only About Children said it was cooperating with authorities and focusing on supporting children, families and team members.
The Victorian government has encouraged anyone directly affected to contact local specialist support services listed on its investigation website.
Father says he discovered charges through media reports
One father, whose children attended the Williamstown centre during Mr Brown's employment, told the ABC parents had not been informed by either police or the centre that Mr Brown had allegedly offended there.
Instead, they discovered it through media reports today.
He said families had been grappling with fears that Mr Brown might have offended there.
"We had tried to move on hoping that nothing had happened to our children,"the father said.
"But the unfortunate reality is, just because your children have negative tests and there's no trail of evidence indicating a crime, doesn't mean that something didn't happen to your children.
"We live with that everyday but we also have to live with the perspective that we might never actually know.
"My youngest was around one, one-and-a-half, completely defenceless and can't tell us what may or may not have happened, so we may never know.
"That is something that, if you let it, really eats you up."
Accused now facing 156 charges
About 2,000 children were asked to undergo health screening after it was revealed that Mr Brown had been arrested in July.
The former childcare worker had been charged with more than 70 offences in relation to alleged offending against eight young children at Creative Garden Early Learning Centre between April 2022 and January 2023.
Joshua Dale Brown now faces more than 150 charges. (Facebook)
In July, health authorities said they had taken a "cautious" approach in recommending 1,200 children linked to the case be tested for potential infectious diseases.
Police at the time said Mr Brown had worked at 20 childcare centres between January 2017 and May 2025.
In a statement on Thursday, Premier Jacinta Allan said she was angry and distressed by the additional allegations.
"The allegations this year have broken the trust of Victorians, and they've broken my trust too," she said.
The government announced a series of reforms to the troubled childcare sector the day after the initial charges were revealed, including creating a register of childcare workers.
It also launched a rapid review which later found childcare watchdogs were failing to keep children safe due to poor information sharing, legal constraint and underfunding.
Regulatory changes have also strengthened the Working with Children Check (WWCC) scheme and made it easier for checks to be revoked or suspended.
In total, Mr Brown has now been charged with 156 offences.
He is due to face court in February next year.
Loading...