The mother of a four-year-old boy who was sexually abused by a paedophile childcare worker in Canberra is furious at how the incident was handled by the centre and is speaking out against the broken system.
Pakistani immigrant Muhammad Ali, then aged 30, was sentenced to just 18 months in prison with a 12-month non-parole period in November 2023 after being found guilty of indecently touching the boy’s genitals while working as an assistant educator at a daycare centre.
But the victim’s mum, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told ABC’s Four Corners that the centre did not respond to her complaints after her son told her about the abuse, and believes if she hadn’t then gone to police with a recording the whole thing would have been quietly dismissed.
The disturbing video shows the mum, given the pseudonym Emily by the program, asking her upset son what was wrong after picking him up from the centre, only for the boy to reply: “His name is Ali. He pinched me on the doodle … and he was doing that to some of the other boys”.
No other parents were informed about her complaint, and when Emily did not hear back and went to the police three weeks later she discovered that crucial CCTV footage had been overwritten, while in court it was revealed that Ali was hired despite losing two previous jobs due to drug use.
Two months after Ali was arrested the centre was sold and rebranded, but Emily said the same staff members remained.
“All I can see is they just put a different T-shirt on and call themselves something else,” Emily said.
“I get that some parents are like, ‘Well, it would never happen to me’, but how do you know it hasn’t happened already? You wouldn’t know ’cause they don’t tell you. Everything’s a secret and they don’t care about your kids.
“They’re there to make money and that’s the bottom line.”
Emily also believes that if she hadn’t taught her son about abuse prevention and body safety Ali’s crime would never have been exposed.
Ali was also charged with two other counts of committing an act of indecency upon a person under the age of 10 years against two other children, but the same jury found him not guilty of one, and was unable to come to a unanimous verdict on the other, meaning he was only convicted for abusing Emily’s son.
Justice Belinda Baker found in sentencing that Ali’s offending was sexually motivated, that he had not shown any remorse or accepted responsibility, and noted that he had been assessed as being at an above average risk of sexual re-offending.
NSW Green MP Abigail Boyd told the program that when she applied for internal documents to assess the handling of childcare breaches the state government fought to keep them secret, and that the tiny amount of information she was eventually given was so horrifying she ended up in tears.
“There were multiple reports of inappropriate sexual touching, multiple reports of educators treating children really roughly, lots of broken elbows, broken wrists, kids being kicked, kids being verbally abused and a lot of inappropriate restraint, force-feeding, putting pillows over their heads,” she said.
“This is just one little snapshot of what is going on in these centres that gets actually reported and investigated. It’s really horrific what people do when they don’t think anyone’s watching.”
National data analysed by Four Corners revealed there were more than 26,000 serious incidents – including deaths, serious injuries, trauma or illness, missing children and allegations of sexual, physical or emotional abuse – in 2024, a 27% increase in just three years.
In childcare centres in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia there is an average of one report a day of sexual misconduct or sexual offences, while Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory lack a reportable conduct scheme.
Header image: Emily son telling her about the abuse (Four Corners).
