Fresh allegations against accused paedophile Joshua Brown as parents sent shocking e-mail about conduct
Last month, Brown, 26, was charged in relation to eight victims who attended a Point Cook childcare centre between April 2022 and January 2023, which include 70 offences.
The newly uncovered allegations are unrelated to the earlier charges.
G8 Education sent a letter to families on Saturday that Brown was at the centre of two separate investigations, which were reported to Victoria Police and the education department.
In April 2023, Brown was investigated after he was accused of aggressive conduct towards a child. '(He) aggressively picked up and put down and did not uphold the dignity and rights of a child in his care,' the e-mail said.
The allegations were reported by three team members.
Brown was given a 'written formal warning' and placed on an improvement plan for his work performance following the incident. Brown opted to take extended leave after the disciplinary action.
In a separate incident in 2024, Brown 'forcibly grabbed the arm of one child, the leg of another child and forcibly pulled off that child's shoe', according to the e-mail.
He was suspended during the second investigation and eventually resigned.
At this time, Brown had a valid Working With Children Check (WWCC).
Despite recent claims Brown was not known to police, the e-mail confirmed the incidents were reported to Victoria Police.
The allegations did not spark a review of his WWCC, which allowed him to work at other centres.
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Joshua Dale Brown, 26, has been charged with more than 70 sex offences against eight alleged victims aged under two at a childcare centre in Melbourne. Authorities have previously said there were no known complaints against him, however childcare giant Nido Early Learning has confirmed Brown was sacked while on probation after completing 18 shifts at a centre in Werribee, in Melbourne's west. The incident happened before he started working at the G8-owned Creative Garden centre at Point Cook in Melbourne's southwest, where he is accused of abusing children between April 2022 and January 2023. A Nido Early Learning spokesperson said Brown was terminated over "unsatisfactory attention" given to an internal incident report related to one child's behaviour towards another child. He was also subject to two misconduct investigations while he was working at G8, both of which found the non-sexual claims involving children were substantiated. 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Currently, the only information about educators childcare employers have access to when a worker applies for a job is their CV and referees. Ms Page said the register's board must take firm action against misconduct that may not reach the criminal threshold. "Children are such a vulnerable cohort. It often is difficult to reach that threshold of evidence ... so I do think we need to have better safeguards in place," she said. The parents of about 2000 children who crossed paths with Brown have been told to get them tested for infectious diseases. His work history was updated this week to include five new centres. Investigators have blamed delays on gathering information on his employment on a lack of centralised records, revealing they had to get search warrants to obtain handwritten records, shift rosters and other critical data. Former royal commissioner Robert Fitzgerald, who sat on the inquiry into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, said it had been difficult to get Australia's governments to act on recommendations around record keeping and information sharing. "Ten years on ... the job has not yet been done and it has not been done because the nine governments of Australia have not committed the willpower to get it done in a timely manner," Mr Fitzgerald said. "These are all manageable. These are all achievable and my disappointment is that progress has been made, but the job should have been done." The former commissioner said every gap left in safeguarding the sector meant children were put at risk. Early childhood education expert Erin Harper said the proposed register should delineate between criminal activity and non-criminal conduct to protect workers who make one small mistake but still weed out more concerning patterns. 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
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