Officials urge health detection for 1,200 children after an Australian child care worker accused of violation, abuse

Police have urged some 1,200 families to make their children evaluated with infectious diseases after a child care worker in Melbourne was accused of multiple crimes of sexual aggression against eight children.

Joshua Brown, 26, was accused of more than 70 crimes, including child violation and attempt to violate and possession of child sexual abuse, said the Victoria Police in a statement on Tuesday.

“The most important thing for our investigators was that we needed to identify the victims involved,” the interim commander Janet Stevenson, the Victoria Police Crime Command, said Tuesday. “These are some of the most vulnerable members of our community and the conversations that the police have had with their families certainly changed their lives in the worst possible way.”

The charges are related to eight alleged victims of a child care center in the Melbourne suburb of Point Cook, between April 2022 and January 2023, but the authorities fear that more children may have been affected. Brown worked in more than 20 child care centers in the region between 2017 and his arrest in May 2025, according to the Police.

Detectives are investigating, “as a priority,” evidence of possible possible offenses of Brown during his time at another child care center in the Melbourne suburb of Essendon.

In total, some 2,600 families whose children attended the two institutions during Brown’s employment, and the authorities recommended to 1,200 children who are evaluated by certain diseases due to the “form of alleged crime,” said the state health authorities.

“As a precaution, we recommend that some children undergo infectious diseases due to a possible risk of exposure in that period,” said Victoria’s director, Christian McGrath, at a press conference on Tuesday. “We believe it is a low risk, but we want to offer this to guarantee parents about the health and well -being of their children.”

McGrath did not specify what diseases had recommended the tests, but said they could be treated with antibiotics.

Police said Brown acted alone, and only within the state of Victoria. He had a valid certification to work with children in the state, and was not known by the police before his arrest in May, after the detectives discovered that he had child abuse material.

The best official of the state of Victoria, Prime Minister Jacinta Allan, said in a statement on Tuesday that he was “sick with these accusations of abuse. They are shocking and distressing.”

“My heart breaks for those families who live the worst nightmare of all parents,” he added. “As a father, I can only imagine the unbearable pain and anguish that affected families feel.”

Brown, who has been in custody since May and has not yet presented a supplication to the positions, will be presented at the Melbourne magistrates court on September 15.

• Rape
• Sexually transmitted infections
• Child sexual abuse
• Australia
• Child care
• Child abuse