Sydney

Disclaimer: Some readers may find the story disturbing. Discretion is advised.

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A former childcare worker, Ashley Paul Griffith, was sentenced to life in jail in Australia for raping and sexually assaulting almost 70 girls, all minor. He was known as one of Australia's "worst paedophiles." 

The 47-year-old confessed to around 307 offences he committed at childcare centres in the Australian state of Queensland and Italy. 

He committed the offences between 2003 to 2022, and his victims were kids from the age of one to seven. 

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While sentencing him, the judge called the offences committed by him "depraved" and "horrendous". 

Judge Paul Smith further added that  "there was a significant breach of trust."

Griffith was further separately accused of sexually abusing an unknown number of children in the state of New South Wales. 

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The court also added that since Griffith had a "paedophilic disorder," there was a high chance of him repeating the offences.  Hence, the judge ordered a non-parole period of at least 27 years for Griffith. 

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Griffith was arrested in 2022 for sexually molesting around 1,600 children, but most of them were eventually dropped. 

Adding to his heinous act, Griffith ruploaded videos and photographs of him sexually assaulting children onto the dark web, investigation revealed.

In all those videos and photographs, the faces of the victims were cropped, but the investigators still traced them to Griffith because of the same bedsheet visible. It was found that the bedsheet was sold to childcare centres across Queensland.

Griffith was charged with 28 counts of rape, almost 200 charges relating to indecent treatment of a child, and several related to making and sharing child exploitation material.

Talking to The Courier Mail, some of his victims shared their grief and the damage he left on their lives. 

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Two of his victims said he assaulted them in kindergarten when he was their favourite teacher. 

"To find out what he was doing was devastating and brought on conflicting emotions, to say the least," one of the girls said. 

(With inputs from agencies)