A paedophile Perth babysitter jailed for sexually abusing 16 children decided to pursue a childcare career because he thought it would be “easy money”, the Supreme Court has heard.
Jareth Thomas Harries-Markham, now 24, moved to Western Australia from New South Wales in 2020 in search of employment options.
Jareth Thomas Harries-Markham has been jailed for more than 100 child sex abuse charges against children as young as eight months old.Credit:Facebook
His initial goal after graduating school was to become a chef but, according to Justice Stephen Hall, he could not find an apprenticeship.
He then applied for the defence force, but was deemed unfit for service.
Harries-Markham’s work history, and the path that led him to abuse more than a dozen children, was laid bare as he was sentenced in the WA Supreme Court on Tuesday to 18 years behind bars. He must serve 16 years of his sentence before being eligible for parole.
After moving to WA, Harries-Markham found websites advertising babysitting and live-in au pair work.
He created a profile and also posted on several Facebook parenting groups, claiming he had years of experience looking after children, a working with children check, and police clearance.
Hall said this experience was “exaggerated” to make him sound more qualified than he was.
Harries-Markham proceeded to work for 12 families over the next 14 months, from July 2020 to August 2021, taking care of 16 children aged between eight months and nine years old.
But during that time he sexually abused and manipulated them, videoing himself performing perverse acts and taking photos of the children without their clothes on and often in compromising positions.
Four of his victims were younger than two.
The last of his victims was the youngest; an eight-month-old baby. Police found images of the child still on Harries-Markham’s mobile phone when they arrested him in August 2021.
Three sisters who had been under his care told their parents what had happened. He denied their allegations against him at the time.
Harries-Markham’s lawyer Amir Murad said there was no evidence to suggest his client became a babysitter to gain access to children, and had first started to make “easy money” and continued because it “didn’t feel like work at all”.
Murad said Harries-Markham had always struggled to fit in and had never experienced meaningful relationships with anyone his own age.
But Hall said while there was no proof Harries-Markham first pursued childcare work because of his sexual interest in children – later diagnosed as paedophilic disorder – he would have known the risk he posed after his first job, but chose to continue his work.
Hall said the sentence imposed would be lengthy and Harries-Markham would not be out of jail before the youngest child he abused was a young adult.
“The trust [the parents] placed in you was grossly violated,” Hall said.
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