{"id":801924,"date":"2026-07-15T13:45:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T13:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/801924\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T13:45:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T13:45:13","slug":"school-in-remote-sa-indigenous-community-on-list-of-places-where-accused-paedophile-worked-south-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/801924\/","title":{"rendered":"School in remote SA Indigenous community on list of places where accused paedophile worked | South Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

A federal police investigation into an accused paedophile facing more than 300 child abuse charges has expanded to a remote community in South Australia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hamish Tait, 35, faces 329 charges of child abuse between 2009 and 2025 while working across 62 centres.<\/p>\n

The charges include 162 counts of producing child abuse material, 81 counts of filming a person engaged in a private act without consent and 24 counts of using a child under 14 years for the production of child abuse material.<\/p>\n

Some 136 alleged victims are known to police but a further 22 are yet to be identified.<\/p>\n

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Tait was arrested and charged in July 2025, when police seized almost 2.5m files from electronic devices at his home. He has remained in custody.<\/p>\n

Police have established a website under Operation Moonbi, which includes a list of the 55 childhood education facilities where Tait worked or attended between 2009 and 2025, many of which are in Sydney<\/a>. Police have not suggested he offended at all centres named.<\/p>\n

While the matter is before the courts in New South Wales and Tait has not been charged with any offences in South Australia, a small preschool in a remote Indigenous community has been included on the list.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday the acting South Australian premier and Indigenous affairs minister, Kyam Maher, told 891 ABC Adelaide the allegations were \u201cdisturbing\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe police will of course investigate what\u2019s happened, what the involvement was with children \u2026 this is disturbing and we would hope that the police investigate fully,\u201d Maher said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have requested more information from our South Australian police who work very closely with the federal police on a whole range of things, including these sorts of matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, the SA education department said it was aware of the matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are aware of this matter with investigations continuing,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe Department for Education has a policy around informing a school community at the appropriate time whenever allegations of sexual misconduct are made against any person who has been involved in any capacity at a school, including external contractors and volunteers.\u201d<\/p>\n

A non-publication order sought by the Australian federal police to protect the integrity of the police investigation was lifted on Monday after a legal stoush.<\/p>\n

On Monday, AFP acting commander Luke Needham urged the community to consider what they might be able to share with police to assist in identifying the victims.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe abuse of trust, we alleged, has occurred, is devastating, and will have lifelong ramifications for victims and their families,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a parent myself, I\u2019m acutely aware of how distressing this news is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 with AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal police investigation into an accused paedophile facing more than 300 child abuse charges has expanded to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":801925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-801924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801924","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=801924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}