Warning: This article contains material some readers may find distressing, including sexual assault and child abuse. Reader discretion is advised.
On 8 December 2025, one year since commissioned by the Queensland Family and Child Commission, the Child Death Review Board (the Board) released a 506-page report titled ‘In Plain Sight – Review into System Responses to Child Sexual Abuse’ (the Report).
That Report was instigated by the serious offending of one individual towards several children over an extended period. The offender worked at several early childhood education and care centres across Queensland and over about a 20 year period committed 307 serious offences against 69 children. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
The Report found that this individual:
- circumvented recruitment processes by exploiting gaps in recruitment screening processes;
- created opportunities for offending by altering environments and obstructing line of sight to avoid detection;
- engaged in grooming behaviours towards children, their families, and child centre staff; and
- targeted young children because of their limited capacity to recognise and report abuse.
The Board said in their Report:
- the offending could and should have been detected and disrupted earlier;
- more effective recruitment and screening practices would have helped disrupt the offending;
- complaints were raised and left unresolved;
- concerning grooming behaviours were dismissed as isolated incidents, or not identified as issues.
It was to those and similar risks the Board was commissioned to address, systematically. In their Report, the Board proposed several transformational and operational recommendations for child-facing organisations to strengthen their systems so as to mitigate the risk of abuse. Among other things, the Board recommended (with a focus on early childhood education and care services):
- the appointment of child safeguarding officers (for medium-sized organisations and above);
- explicitly include child safeguarding within risk management plans and performance reporting (for medium-sized organisations and above);
- incorporate safeguarding practises and culture into regular activities; and
- increased duty of care and penalties for organisations and leaders that oversee processes that lead to harm.
While the Report is focused on preventing such offending from occurring again in early childhood education and care services, there are safeguarding principles that apply to all organisations that work with children and the vulnerable.
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This article was written by Eustacia Yates.
**The information contained herein does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice and is for general informational purposes only.
