{"id":29643,"date":"2026-06-12T01:01:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T01:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/29643\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T01:01:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T01:01:10","slug":"childcare-paedophile-ashley-paul-griffith-loses-appeal-to-reduce-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/29643\/","title":{"rendered":"Childcare paedophile Ashley Paul Griffith loses appeal to reduce sentence"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former south-east Queensland childcare worker who sexually abused dozens of children at centres for almost two decades has failed to have his sentence reduced.<\/p>\n

Ashley Paul Griffith is currently serving life in jail, after admitting to committing hundreds of offences against 69 young girls.<\/p>\n

His offending took place at early learning centres where he was employed across Brisbane and Italy between 2003 and 2022.<\/p>\n

At his 2024 sentence, a supreme court judge ordered that he must serve 27 years in custody before being eligible for parole, which is almost double the statutory minimum period in Queensland.<\/p>\n

Last month Griffith’s lawyers appealed the non-parole period, arguing it was manifestly excessive.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Ashley Paul Griffith is currently serving life in jail. (ABC News: Sharon Gordon)<\/p>\n

It was submitted this did not reflect his co-operation with the investigation and the court, and was not consistent with other sentences when having regard to similar cases.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the Court of Appeal dismissed the application.<\/p>\n

With time already served, Griffith can apply for release in 2049.<\/p>\n

In a published judgment, COA judge Justice John Bond said there was “no assistance to be gleaned from comparative cases” referenced during the appeal.<\/p>\n

Justice Bond also said the appeal arguments “tended to understate” the harm caused by Griffiths’ disgraceful offending and overstated his mitigation value.<\/p>\n

“The applicant has created a widening gyre of grave hurt and trauma,” he said in his written reasons.<\/p>\n

\"Exterior<\/p>\n

Justice John Bond said Griffith’s offending had “corroded trust” in the childcare sector. (ABC News: Luke Bowden)<\/p>\n

Justice Bond said Griffith’s offending was likely to cause serious ongoing emotional and psychological damage to his victims and their families, and had “corroded trust” in the childcare sector.<\/p>\n

He said for this, condign punishment was deserved and the offending called for a sentence “with a very significant deterrent effect”.<\/p>\n

“The child victims, their parents and the community at large were entitled to be protected from offending of this nature,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It must be denounced in the strongest terms.”<\/p>\n

It was accepted Griffith cooperated with authorities and the court, but Justice Bond said this was “in the face of overwhelming and irrefutable evidence” of his wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

“It is possible, though by no means certain, that some judges may have given the applicant a little more benefit than did this sentencing judge,” he said.<\/p>\n

“But there is no single correct sentence.”<\/p>\n

“In my view the exercise of the sentencing discretion to require the applicant to serve a minimum period of 27 years’ imprisonment was within the bounds of a proper exercise of the sentencing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former south-east Queensland childcare worker who sexually abused dozens of children at centres for almost two decades…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13938,19238,22,21,6240,5745,4543,15407,27217,12364],"class_list":["post-29643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-appeal","tag-ashley-paul-griffith","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-child-sex-abuse","tag-childcare","tag-children","tag-court-of-appeal","tag-early-learning-centre","tag-sentence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}