Boy, 3, told family of ‘bad man’ at Brisbane childcare centre, trial hears

A Brisbane childcare worker accused of sexually abusing children had allegedly played a game called ‘doctors’ with multiple kids, before a mother walked in on one incident, a jury has heard.

Joshua James Capps, a childcare educator, pleaded not guilty to one count of rape, and three counts to indecent treatment of children on Monday in the District Court in Brisbane.

The alleged offences happened in 2023 while he was working at a C&K childcare centre in Geebung.

Capps is alleged to have offended against three children.

Crown prosecutor Arielle Spiteri told the court part of the charges related to what Capps had referred to as a game called “Doctors”.

She said a mother of one of the victims had arrived one afternoon to pick up her son from the centre.

The mother collected her son’s schoolbag from the class, and went outside to find him. There, she says she saw Capps crouching in front of another child, and their tongues were poking out, touching each other, the court heard.

She said she saw her own child nearby, who ran to her.

She said she could clearly see Capps touching tongues with the other child, and their tongues were touching.

“[Capps] looked straight at me, and then he stood up, and then he walked about five metres … to a group of children and [a child] walked with him,” the mother told the court.

The mother said she spoke with her son about Capps in the car on the way home. She told the court the morning after the alleged tongue touching incident, her son had another conversation with her.

She said she was making up lunchboxes, and her son had said he did not want to go to kindy again. The mother said her son disclosed how Capps had allegedly raped him while he was on a slide.

The court heard the boy told his mother that he did not want to talk about it anymore. The mother told the court her son had said Capps had told him if he told his parents, the police would come and get the boy.

The boy spoke with police, the prosecution said, where he disclosed sexual abuse, which encompassed the rape charge.

Under cross-examination by Capps’ barrister Jack Kennedy, the mother said she had seen the alleged tongue incident for a few seconds.

Kennedy asked her when she reported seeing Capps with the child, she was expecting the worst. The mother replied: “No, I saw it.”

The mother told the court when she went home she made calls to other people at the centre, informing them to remove the child she had seen, and explaining she was going to call the police.

The boy’s grandfather also told the court the boy had disclosed the alleged abuse to him, describing Capps as a “bad man”.

Spiteri said the prosecution would rely on CCTV footage from the centre, which showed Capps also touching tongues with another young girl, aged 2, in the same way.

Footage played to the court showed several children running around in an outside area of the centre, with Capps crouching down before children saying: “doctor, help me, my elbow keeps breaking.”

Spiteri said Capps was an educator at the centre for about three months before the alleged offending.

Capps at times leant forward to listen to the prosecution and the mother as they talked, and watched the footage shown to the court.

The trial is scheduled to run for four days before Judge Dominique Grigg, and Capps remains on bail.

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