The mother of two young kids looked after by a childcare worker accused of using children to create abuse images has slammed officials for keeping families in the dark.

The Sydney father of two had his case heard in Parramatta Local Court on Friday, but had his identity and details of his business suppressed by court order. 

He is alleged to have hoarded 1.4million child abuse images on his electronic devices, including 500,000 ‘unique images’.

But the parents of children who were regulars at his childcare operation are incensed by the lack of information they’ve had about the investigation.

‘All we want to know is if our kids are in them,’ said one mother whose children were weekly regulars with the accused business owner.

The woman said she was mystified about the shroud of secrecy surrounding the allegation when others accused of similar crimes have been publicly identified.

The mother, who cannot be identified, said the man had appeared to be an outwardly positive child advocate who stood up for children’s rights until his arrest was revealed on Thursday.

‘He spoke about children with nothing but respect and dignity and advocated for their rights,’ she said, but now she felt ‘disgust, anger, grief, everything’ about the allegations.

She said shortly afterwards, the childcare worker had vanished, his social media accounts were shut down and she later learnt that he had been arrested. 

But it was only when she discovered details of the charges he faced on Thursday, when it was revealed in the media that an unidentified man had been charged with seven counts of using a child to make abuse material, that she pieced things together.

She said the Australian Federal Police had ‘stonewalled’ her when she asked questions about the 500,000 ‘unique images’ from the files seized off the man’s devices that police are investigating.

She told the Daily Mail she did ‘some detective work’ before travelling from her home to Parramatta Local Court for his case to be heard.

On Friday the accused man’s lawyer told Magistrate Peter Feather there was ‘no requirement’ for his client to appear onscreen via audio-video link from prison. 

Mr Feather adjourned the case until November 21 to allow for a large brief of evidence containing multiple images to be served. 

The accused had worked at a number of childcare centres in Sydney, and had worked in the industry for more than a decade.

The mother said the man charged is the person who minded her two kids, as well as her nieces and nephews and the children of friends in a mothers group she belonged to in a particular area of Sydney.

Australian Federal Police arrested him in July after executing a search warrant at his home a month earlier, when they seized several of his electronic devices.

AFP Det Supt Luke Needham said police were still reviewing the evidence and identifying the man’s alleged victims.

‘The number of files does not provide any indication of the scale of the alleged offending, rather, this indicates the volume of work required by investigators from the AFP’s victim identification team,’ he said.

‘The team continues to methodically review the electronic material. The AFP is committed to dedicating resources to protect our children.’

Three of the man’s seven charges of using a child under 14 years to make child abuse material have been classed as aggravated. 

He also faces one count of possessing child abuse material on a data-use carriage service.

The case comes after other male childcare workers have been charged by police.

In Victoria, Joshua Dale Brown, 26, is facing 73 charges including sexually penetrating children, sexual activity in the presence of a child and contaminating food.

Brown’s alleged offending took place at Creative Garden Early Learning at Point Cook in Melbourne’s western suburbs. 

He is believed to have worked at 24 childcare centres. 

In NSW, 26-year-old David William James is accused of photographing and filming boys as young as five in varying states of undress as well as performing sex acts with children. 

James, a graduate of Knox Grammar on Sydney’s upper north shore, worked part-time at 58 out-of-school-hours centres between March 2018 and September 2024.

 Ashley Paul Griffith was jailed for life in November last year after pleading guilty to 307 offences committed between 2003 and 2022 in Queensland.

The 47-year-old will spend at least 27 years behind bars for crimes including 28 counts of rape against girls aged three to five.