The Greens NSW have welcomed the long overdue announcement that childcare pedophile Ashley Griffith will be extradited from Queensland, where he has been serving a life sentence, to NSW for prosecution.
Despite video evidence of his alleged abuse, his admission of guilt to abusing Queensland children, and police identifying nearly two dozen alleged NSW victims, Griffith has yet to face charges for 180 offences committed while employed at a Sydney daycare centre.
The Greens have been fighting, alongside family members of his victims, for Griffith’s extradition for many months. The Greens changed the law to enable legal action to be brought against childcare directors within two years of an abuser’s legal proceedings, rather than within two years of the offence, to enable further prosecutions to be able to result from Griffith’s offending, which would have otherwise passed their statute of limitations due to these delays in the justice system.
As stated by Abigail Boyd, Greens NSW MP and Chair of the NSW Parliamentary Education Committee:
“I am relieved to learn that Mr Griffith will finally face the courts and a reckoning for his heinous crimes here in NSW.
“The delay that has so far been experienced has only prolonged the heartache and suffering of his victims and their families, and has provided cover to those whose actions or failures to act helped these crimes to occur.
“We have been lobbying the Attorney General, Michael Daley, for his extradition to be expedited. I am glad that now, 7 months after I publicly raised it with the Attorney General, and longer still since the advocacy of myself and the Greens Member for Balmain, Kobi Shetty, began that he is finally going to face some small modicum of justice.
“No amount of time in a cell, no amount of books thrown, will undo the terrible impact of his offending. His prosecution is not a true resolution of anything, it’s simply a reminder of the grave responsibility we have to protect vulnerable children from those who mean them harm.
“We need to be doing everything in our power to prevent the conditions for such abuse from being able to reoccur. That happens by removing the commercial incentives from early childhood education and care, by increasing staffing ratios and by investing in skills and quality with a well paid and well trained workforce. Unfortunately, the reforms I have seen to date from state and federal governments fail to keep children safe, being more interested in punishment after the offence than creating the conditions where such offending is not possible.”
