A male childcare worker has been charged with over 70 alleged child sex offences as over 1,000 children are urged to get tested for infectious diseases.
Joshua Brown, 26, was arrested on May 12 and charged with a slew of offences relating to eight alleged victims between the ages of two months and five-years-old.
The alleged victims attended a daycare centre in Point Cook, in Melbourne’s southwest, between April 2022 and January 2023.
Brown was employed at 20 childcare centres over an eight-year period between January 2017 and May 2025.
Up to 2,600 families of children who attended the centres while Brown was employed have been contacted by police.
Detectives are prioritising investigations into alleged offending at a second childcare centre in Essendon, in the city’s northwest.
Up to 1,200 children have been recommended by health authorities to undergo testing for infectious diseases due to a ‘potential exposure risk’.
Chief Health Officer Christian McGrath told a press conference on Tuesday the testing process was expected to take ‘days to weeks’.
Up to 1,200 children have been urged to get tested for infectious diseases after a 26-year-old childcare worker was charged with over 70 alleged child sex offences (stock)
Infected children could be treated with antibiotics, he said.
Dr McGrath said health authorities were confident that those who had not been contacted will not need to undergo the testing.
Families who have not been contacted by authorities, but are worried, can call a dedicated advice hotline that has been set up for families.
The hotline is 1800 791 241, and it is available seven days a week from 8am to 9pm on weekdays and 8am to 5pm on weekends.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allen said she was ‘sickened by these allegations of abuse’.
‘They are shocking and distressing, it is every parent’s worst nightmare,’ she said.
Brown has remained in custody since his arrest in mid-May.
He was not known to police before his arrest and had a valid Working With Children Check, which has since been cancelled.
Creative Garden Early Learning Point Cook, one of the impacted centres, is pictured
His offences include the sexual penetration of a child, producing child abuse material and recklessly contaminating goods to cause alarm or anxiety.
Brown will next appear at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on September 15.
