Ashley Paul Griffith pleads guilty to 307 offences against around 60 children in her care.
A former childcare worker in Australia has admitted sexually abusing dozens of girls in one of the worst cases of paedophilia in the country's history.
Ashley Paul Griffith pleaded guilty Monday to 307 charges relating to children in her care, including 28 counts of rape, 90 counts of indecent treatment and 67 counts of producing child exploitation material.
The offences were committed against around 60 children, many of them under 12, in nurseries in Australia and Italy over a period of more than 19 years.
It took more than two hours for a judge's associate at Brisbane District Court to read out the charges against Griffith, 46, who appeared impassive as he pleaded guilty to all charges, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
Griffith was arrested in 2022 and originally charged with several child exploitation offenses.
Prosecutors later charged the Gold Coast, Queensland, man with more than 1,600 offences against 91 girls, but most of those charges were dropped ahead of Monday's hearing.
Last year, New South Wales state police Deputy Commissioner Michael Fitzgerald described the case as “one of the most horrific cases of alleged child abuse our detectives have ever seen.”
Police said they had been searching for Griffith since they discovered a collection of child exploitation images and videos circulating on the dark web in 2014.
Griffith, who will be sentenced at a later date, did not apply for bail and was returned to custody following his arraignment.
