Accused child sex abuser had been flagged to authorities after alleged touching incident

Australia Broadcast Center

3 days ago

Accused paedophile David James was investigated and suspended in June 2024 after a colleague reported witnessing him inappropriately touching a child under 10 at a Primary OSHCare centre.
Despite the seriousness of the allegation and reports to police, Office of the Children's Guardian and the regulator, his working with children check was unaffected so he continued to work at other out of school hour centres with children.
While the 26-year-old was stood down from services operated by Junior Adventures Group (JAG), which owns Primary OSHCare and other brands including Helping Hands, he remained on the books and was still paid his part-time wages. Other providers, unaware of the incident, kept him employed on a casual basis.
Mr James was charged in October over the alleged abuse at Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) facilities between April 2021 and May 2024.
The case has thrust private equity firm Quadrant into the centre of another childcare scandal, this time involving the booming OSHC sector.
Over seven years, Mr James worked at nearly 60 different OSHC services across Sydney, including multiple centres operated by Quadrant-owned JAG, which also runs the brands OSHClub and Helping Hands.
Quadrant also owns Affinity Education, one of Australia's largest early learning providers, currently under intense scrutiny after a string of abuse allegations.
In October, a different man was arrested and charged in regional NSW with nine counts of intentionally sexually touching a child under 10. Another man, Joshua Dale Brown, who worked at 24 centres — including 13 run by Affinity — is facing more than 70 charges, including sexual penetration of children.
Affinity centres have also been at the centre of disturbing physical abuse incidents, including reports of toddlers yanked by the arms, children used to clean up vomit, broken bones, vomiting after contact with exposed metal hooks, and a baby slapped across the face repeatedly by an educator "for fun."
Mr James' case also highlights serious flaws in childcare regulation, with services in the dark when serious allegations are alleged.
7.30 can reveal internal documents from the NSW regulator show a number of other incidents including at centres owned by JAG.
At JAG's Helping Hands Lane Cove East, regulatory documents reveal a serious breach by two unnamed educators, who in March 2023 grabbed and pulled a child by the legs after trying to hide in the hall.
The centre failed to notify the regulator or parents of the incident within the prescribed time frame of 24 hours.
The regulatory letter resulted in a formal caution to the educators and mandated staff training on incident report compliance.
Mr James also worked at a number of Camp Australia centres, which is the country's largest provider with nearly 500 services and is owned by a consortium of corporate investors led by private equity firm Allegro.
A Camp Australia spokesman said "there is no evidence nor information indicating any offence has been committed at our services".
At Camp's Artarmon centre regulatory documents list a series of unrelated breaches in November 2023 including children left unsupervised while moving between two play areas, blind spots, stairs and an open gate leading to a busy road.
The spokesperson said the centre responded to the breaches with a detailed risk assessment and the matter was closed in February 20025 with no further action.
He said the company would work with the government and the regulator to strengthen the governance of the sector.
Contact Adele Ferguson on [e-mail]
OSHC is part of the $20 billion childcare sector, and like long day care is heavily subsidised by the federal Child Care Subsidy.
But unlike long day care, OSHC services operate under looser rules.
Staff aren't required to hold formal early childhood qualifications and supervision ratios are far more lenient, allowing one worker to oversee 15 children from ages five to 12.
In contrast, long day care services must meet stricter ratios — as low as 1:4 babies under one, 1:5 for toddlers, and 1:10 or 1:11 children over three.
Despite these reduced standards, the OSHC sector is still heavily underwritten by public money. Like early learning centres, most OSHC services are funded through the federal Child Care Subsidy.
Critics warn the minimal training, high child-to-staff ratios, and fragmented oversight creates fertile ground for serious harm, where red flags can be missed and vulnerable children left exposed.
NSW Greens politician Abigail Boyd, who has called a parliamentary inquiry into childcare and OSHC, said there has been a dramatic decline in quality in recent years.
"Out-of-school-hours care has traditionally been a service provided by and for school community groups and families to support busy working families navigate the demands of work and parenting," she said.
"But over time, and particularly in recent years, we have seen the increased incursion into this area by large corporate players, lured by the relaxed regulatory landscape designed for school community groups and the promises of a regular revenue stream from families forced to work longer hours just to pay the bills.
"This transition of this poorly regulated sector, from community service provision to corporate venture, has seen a dramatic decline in quality of care and safety as services are consolidated and responsible adult-to-child ratios have blown out.
"As we have seen time and again, when the profit motive becomes the primary factor, children's safety is put at unacceptable levels of risk.
"Meanwhile the regulator has been asleep at the wheel, while the Department of Education has encouraged the further privatisation of school services."
Polly Howard has worked in out-of-school-hours care for 20 years.
The director of community-run Eastwood Heights Out of School Hours Care Service in Sydney said the sector was in crisis.
"We are witnessing the real consequences of large commercial private equity owned childcare companies dominating the sector," she said.
"The combination of profit driven companies and badly treated, poorly paid, under-trained educators mean we are not attracting quality educators. This is not a respected profession.
"It's not surprising this is happening.
"Predators look for weak points. When the leadership culture is not child-safe, children are at greater risk."
She said staff are too often under-trained, under-supported and stretched too thin.
"If you treat your operation as if you were running a McDonald's, then children will be put at risk," she said.
Like early learning, OSHC is increasingly dominated by for-profit operators.
Professor Gabrielle Meagher, an expert in social services including childcare, says of the 5,094 out-of-school-hours services in Australia, around 53 per cent are for profit.
She says all the growth in the out-of-school-hours sector over the past decade has come from for profit providers.
"105 per cent of the net growth was for profits," she says.
Government and community-run services have declined by 308 over the same period.
In Victoria, 75 per cent of OSHC services are now run for profit. In Western Australia it's 87 per cent, and in New South Wales 49 per cent.
Since 2016, the number of private operators in NSW has surged 44 per cent — from 545 to 787 — while community-run, not-for-profit services have fallen by 12 per cent.
Professor Meagher says part of the shift in NSW was driven by a 2021 policy change, when the former government introduced competitive tendering for public school OSHC services previously managed by parent-run committees.
"This may have contributed to the decline in the share of these services," she said.
Ms Boyd said the NSW policy had been a disaster.
"The NSW policy has been to deliberately force out community-run organisations and we've been working with them to try and save them," she said.
A spokesperson for the NSW Department of Education said, "We want the best quality outside of school hours care for our students and families.
"Our tender process focuses on the quality of the provider, with this being the key assessment factor in our considerations."
Professor Meagher said nationally, the large for-profit providers operate 40 per cent of all OSHC services in Australia.
The result is a sector increasingly dominated by commercial interests — and one where concerns about quality are mounting.
She said across JAG's hundreds of centres, 10 per cent are not yet rated, 6 per cent exceed the standards, 79 per cent meet the standards and 4 per cent are working towards.
Of Camp Australia's 485 services, 88 per cent meet the national quality standards, 6 per cent are working towards and 5 per cent are not yet rated.
As the for-profit sector grows, experts say concerns are rising that oversight isn't keeping pace.
Polly Howard is sceptical of the quality ratings.
"Currently you can get an exceeding rating by telling good stories, having well written forms and paperwork," she said.
"Right now the system can be played and does not necessarily reward those that deliver the best outcomes for children.
"When the leadership culture is not child-safe, children are at greater risk.
"Child safety isn't just about policies on paper. It's about everyday practice, supervision, culture and trust, educators empowered to speak up, children believed and protected."
Junior Adventures Group said in a statement it has robust child safety policies in place, including a ban on personal mobile phones since 2024, mandatory child safety training, national police and WWCC checks, a dedicated safeguarding team, and risk management plans at every service — with ongoing reviews to ensure compliance with national standards.
"We fully understand how distressing this matter is – we share the immense upset and concern surrounding it," the statement said.
"We have been cooperating with police and doing all that we can to assist them in their investigation. We are now contacting all our parents at the centres the AFP has listed."
A spokesperson for the NSW Early Childhood Education Care Regulatory Authority said, "NSW is actively engaged in reforming the early childhood education and care sector, which includes outside of school hours care, to deliver a safer, more robust and transparent system."
"We know there is more to do. We are committed to a safe, high quality early childhood education and care sector."
Watch 7.30, Mondays to Thursdays 7:30pm on ABC iview and ABC TV
Do you know more about this story? Get in touch with 7.30 here.