The centre that posted the images celebrating Hamish Tait in June 2024 was then blissfully unaware the man they had watched grow into a “rock star” child carer was allegedly the worst paedophile to infiltrate Australia’s daycare sector.
On July 10 last year, they swooped up the driveway of Tait’s parents’ home in West Pennant Hills, handcuffed him and searched his pockets against a wooden fence, in front of his family.
The country was already reeling from the allegations levelled against Sydney childcare paedophile David James, Melbourne childcare worker Joshua Dale Brown – who has pleaded not guilty to abusing children – and Ashley Paul Griffiths, who is serving decades in prison in Queensland and who will soon be extradited over similar charges in Sydney.
The suppression of Tait’s name gave the AFP time to identify children in videos and contact parents without the contamination of a media frenzy.
Tait, in his 16 years in the industry, had fallen in love with and married a co-worker. He passed himself off as an engaged father, a family man who shared the duties of parenthood.
Tait also branded himself as an artist, a traveller and a dreamer with a special interest in Aboriginal culture.
Tait’s now-defunct website, dated 2014 from online data, included photographs of Uluru and Indigenous children, and it said the people and landscape were dear to his heart.
He had allegedly abused children in a community of just 300 residents while working at a centre there.
Tait had instructed his lawyers to fight any attempt to lift the year-long non-publication order over his name. He argued the social standing, mental health of his own family, and his chance of a fair trial would be destroyed.
This masthead lobbied for the non-publication order to be lifted. For two weeks, the public knew the worst alleged daycare paedophile in the nation’s history was trying to keep his name secret. Angry parents took to social media to defy the gag order.
Fit Kidz was named extensively online. The Scaifes outed themselves as the unnamed alleged abuser’s employer.
In a statement, the Scaifes said they had been accused of a “cover-up” and the order prevented them from defending themselves.
[Tait] enlisted his wife and his parents to his application in the court, saying they needed protection from the fallout of his alleged crimes. But it did the opposite, drawing them into the news coverage, and the furious public painted them as conspirators.
Ultimately, Tait’s secrecy bid failed because Operation Moonbi had hit a wall, as 22 children remained unidentified at the time of the court hearing on Monday. This has been reduced to 16 since Tait’s name became public.
The only chance of identifying them, and adding further charges to Tait’s huge rap sheet, would come from parents recognising the dinosaur print on their puffer vests, or the pink and gold of their backpacks, in images the AFP wanted to release to the public. They did so on Thursday.
Judge Stuart Devine ruled the AFP’s investigation needed every chance to find the children and so he lifted the gag order over Tait’s identity.
When families learnt the veteran child carer’s name, they denounced him as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”.
Source: Hamish Tait: The many faces and multiple betrayals of Australia’s alleged ‘worst daycare predator’