{"id":342128,"date":"2025-12-12T02:04:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T02:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/342128\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T02:04:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T02:04:10","slug":"childcare-worker-admits-to-producing-child-abuse-material","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/342128\/","title":{"rendered":"Childcare worker admits to producing child abuse material"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A former police officer who was secretly working in childcare has admitted taking explicit photos and videos of children younger than 10 when they were in his care.<\/p>\n<p>David William James created the child abuse material while working at six out-of-school centres in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.9news.com.au\/sydney\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"Sydney&#039;s\">Sydney&#8217;s<\/a> north and city centres between April 2021 and May 2024.<\/p>\n<p>The 27-year-old is in custody having faced 31 charges, including 17 counts related to the production of child abuse material and seven counts of doing a sexual act with a child that is filmed for child abuse material.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/c954b712-c2aa-4e48-bedf-9605d7d0b55e.png\"   alt=\"David James.\"\/>David James has pleaded guilty to 11 charges. (Supplied)<\/p>\n<p>The distressing allegations include that he filmed children \u2013 the youngest of whom was only four-years-old \u2013 while they were partially undressed and masturbated in their presence.<\/p>\n<p>Today, James pleaded guilty to 11 charges related to the production and possession of child abuse material, and doing a sexual act with children to produce child sex abuse material.<\/p>\n<p>He beamed into court from a custody cell wearing a prison green T-shirt and a blank expression as he confirmed his guilty pleas.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors subsequently withdrew the remaining 20 charges against the former probationary constable in Sydney&#8217;s Downing Centre Local Court.<\/p>\n<p>He will return to the NSW District Court on January 30 to learn when he will be sentenced.<\/p>\n<p>James had been employed as a probationary constable but, after failing to pass his probation, continued in a civilian capacity until his resignation in May 2023.<\/p>\n<p>NSW Police said they were unaware he was working in the childcare sector at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>The 27-year-old came to the attention of Australian Federal Police investigators after they found the child abuse material on the dark web, tracing it back to him in June 2024.<\/p>\n<p>About 1200 parents at the six centres where the alleged offences took place were contacted by federal investigators.<\/p>\n<p>But it was revealed that James worked casually at nearly 60 centres over several years, including some of Sydney&#8217;s most elite schools, sparking widespread concern from parents.<\/p>\n<p>James&#8217; arrest sparked calls for better information-sharing about staff amid a nationwide reckoning in the childcare sector spurred on by the arrests of childcare workers in NSW, Queensland and Victoria.<\/p>\n<p>NSW Premier Chris Minns flagged tougher working-with-children requirements in August and childcare operators say a national register is a top priority, along with real-time notifications of staff under investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.1800respect.org.au\/\" title=\"https:\/\/www.1800respect.org.au\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1800RESPECT (1800 737 732)<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former police officer who was secretly working in childcare has admitted taking explicit photos and videos of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-342128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}