An investigation has been launched after a mother claimed her complaints about one of Australia's worst pedophiles were dismissed more than a decade before his arrest.
Former childcare worker Ashley Paul Griffith, 46, received a life sentence in October after pleading guilty to hundreds of sex offences spanning almost 20 years.
He was arrested in 2022 when police searched his Gold Coast home and found more than 4000 child abuse images and videos on his devices documenting the majority of his offending.
A Brisbane mother believed her son was also a victim of Griffith, saying she reported allegations to police in 2009 but no investigation was launched.
“We tried so many years ago to make it known that Ashley Griffith is a dangerous pedophile - no one listened, no one cared,” the woman said in a statement to Nine Network's A Current Affair.
The mother said her son disclosed to her in 2009 that Griffith had abused him two years earlier at a childcare centre.
Her son told her "Ashley hurt me" and went into graphic detail about the alleged sexual abuse.
The mother took her son to the police station where she hoped the allegations would be taken seriously but claimed that was "far from the reality".
“My four-year-old son was placed in a room with two police officers. They did not build rapport with him, and he did not talk about anything of significance to police that would cause concern in those few brief minutes,” she said.
“We were then asked very few questions and advised that there was nothing to warrant further investigation, and it was over.
“We left the police station feeling bewildered, disbelieved, and possibly crazy."
The mother claimed the allegations were not raised with the childcare centre, and when she called another police station to alert authorities of her concerns, they dismissed it as a "rough nappy change".
Queensland Police's Acting Assistant Commissioner Rhys Wildman confirmed the matter had been referred to the Ethical Standards Command for an overview.
"It's not necessarily saying that anything is being done wrong," he told reporters on Thursday.
"From the police perspective, it's just been requested that an independent area look at that review to make sure that everything was done correctly."
Police Minister Dan Purdie said the allegations of abuse were very concerning but the internal investigation was under way.
He said Queensland Family and Child Commissioner Luke Twyford was also conducting a broader review of the "shocking" crimes.
"(He) will be looking at not only the police response, but across all other agencies, the childcare centres and just the whole network to identify deficiencies or where issues might have been better responded to, and how we can fix that to ensure that it doesn't happen again," Mr Purdie said.
Griffith pleaded guilty to 307 offences, including ongoing sexual abuse and making child exploitation material, against 65 victims aged one to nine beginning in 2003.
He pleaded guilty to 28 counts of rape against girls primarily aged three to five at childcare centres in Queensland between 2007 and 2022.
Griffith is also subject to an arrest warrant for child sex offences allegedly committed while working in NSW between 2014 and 2018.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
