By Perry Duffin
The childcare worker accused of sexually abusing 91 young girls across Sydney and Brisbane was reported to police after another teacher saw the alleged paedophile “kissing” a child almost a year before he was arrested, one of his former managers says.
The Australian Federal Police on Tuesday announced a 45-year-old man had been charged with more than 1600 offences primarily against young children under his care at daycare centres across Queensland and NSW.
Yolanda Boruki says she alerted Queensland Police to a staff member who was seen allegedly “kissing” a child – almost a year before he was charged with abusing 91 girls over years.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was arrested in August 2022, but his former manager told A Current Affair she had raised concerns with Queensland Police in October 2021.
Yolanda Boruki managed a chain of childcare centres where the accused paedophile worked in a senior role for three years, including as a fully qualified teacher.
He was “very close” to the children and families, Boruki said, and used that trust to get the children away from the only other educator working at the centre. He would take them outside to play in a fort with mattresses and blankets.
“They [had] been placing a few mats under the fort when the children been climbing and when they decided they want to have a little nap they will be able to lie down under the fort [sic],” she told A Current Affair in an exclusive interview.
“He apparently was organising. I didn’t witness this. I was only told some activities for them to learn and he would put a blanket over this area.”
A new staff member, Boruki said, saw the man kneeling over one sleeping girl and “kissing” her in the fort in October 2021.
Boruki said the written complaint was sent to police who investigated while the man was stood down on full pay.
The girl’s parents were in disbelief, Boruki said, because they were close to the suspended teacher.
Queensland Police on Friday confirmed they investigated the man but did not search his home or devices. Boruki said he was ultimately cleared for lack of evidence.
“[The man’s] explanation was this person could not see very clear under the fort because it’s quite [a] dark space, and he wasn’t kissing the girl, he was just whispering to her ear to wake her up,” she said.
Boruki said the man was cleared and one mother responded: “I knew he would not do anything to my child.” The mother vowed to welcome the teacher back with a box of chocolates.
The staff member who reported the man was “devastated” and resigned, Boruki said.
Boruki said she tried to manage the man out of the centre, raising the ire of parents who continued to defend him, and of her own HR department who warned about performance managing him after he had been cleared.
When word began to spread of the teacher’s arrest late last year, Boruki said distraught parents accused her of letting a paedophile back to the centre despite the fort allegation.
“I was feeling so sorry for them because you know they [were] feeling like they failed as parents,” she said.
“A few just walked in and took their child and said they are never going to be back.”
Boruki said she always had a gut feeling about the teacher, recalling an “odd” moment while talking to the man with an HR representative in the room, long before the fort allegation.
AFP Assistant Commissioner Justine Gough said Queensland Police had first spotted a horrific video online in 2014.Credit: AFP
“There was a little girl [standing] up in front of him. And he was rubbing her arm,” Boruki said.
“She was just standing there and during the conversation, I just noticed all [of a] sudden he actually kiss her on the forehead.
“I was like, that’s, that’s odd, that’s not something that educators will do.”
Boruki raised the episode with management, but was told there had never been any other issues. She confronted the man the following day.
“He apologised. He [said] ‘Look, that’s, that’s probably because I am very close, it’s a very small centre. We are all here like a family,’ ” she said.
Boruki has been on sick leave since being hospitalised for mental health reasons in June. She says she was made redundant on Monday, just one day before authorities announced the arrest.
AFP Assistant Commissioner Justine Gough on Tuesday said Queensland Police had first spotted a horrific video online in 2014, which had been passed to the AFP.
This masthead revealed AFP victim identification teams last August traced unremarkable bedsheets, in the background of another child sexual abuse video, to a manufacturer who supplied a small amount of childcare centres in Brisbane.
It was the key to breaking the case – detectives were soon standing in the same childcare centre where the man allegedly abused two young girls.
Police will allege the man committed offences in Brisbane, Sydney and overseas, with alleged victims at 10 childcare centres in Brisbane between 2007 and 2013, and from 2018 to 2022, and a centre in Sydney between 2014 and 2017.
Some alleged victims are now over 18.
Extradition to NSW is not likely to happen before the man has faced the judicial system in Queensland.
The man’s case is scheduled for the Brisbane Magistrates Court on August 21.
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