Jury finds accused childcare worker not guilty

A Brisbane childcare worker who was reported to police by a mother who said she saw him touch tongues with a child has been found not guilty of rape and sexual abuse by a jury, after the defence mounted a case on prejudice against male childcare workers.

Joshua James Capps pleaded not guilty at the beginning of his trial this week to one count of rape and three counts of indecent treatment of a child, which he was alleged to have committed while working at a C&K centre on Robinson Road in Brisbane’s north.

During the four-day trial, Capps took the stand to deny the allegations against him.

A mother of one of the alleged victims, a three-year-old boy, told the trial she had walked in on Capps crouching in front of another child and their tongues were poking out, touching each other. Capps had played a game called “doctors” with several children, the trial heard.

The prosecution alleged Capps took advantage of the fact it was normal for educators to have physical contact with children.

In her closing submissions, Crown Prosecutor Arielle Spiteri told the jury it was plausible that Capps could have been doing something innocuous with the children.

“I suggest that Mr Capps committed these offences also under the guise of doing something innocuous, so these things would have just looked like a normal interaction between an educator and child,” Spiteri said.

Spiteri said Capps accepted in his own evidence other educators in the vicinity had been preoccupied.

In his closing submissions, Capps’ barrister, Jack Kennedy, told the jury while the world was acutely aware of sexual offending, this was not the case for his client, who was not guilty of the charges.

He raised how his client had chosen to take the stand, which opened him to cross-examination.

Kennedy also urged the jury to put aside their sympathy.

He said allegations were “very easy to make, but the knock on effects, the consequences can be drastic”.

“Repercussions can be severe. This, in many respects, is not dissimilar to witch trials seen in the past, where you get panic. People believe they see things. They become sure they saw things, allegations made and then somebody’s gone to trial.”

He said the alleged victim’s mother was clearly loving, but she was concerned about a male educator working in the centre.

Kennedy put to the mother under cross-examination earlier in the trial that she was concerned because she had read media articles about men in daycares. The mother agreed, but denied that she was predisposed not to trust Capps.

The mother told the court: “I definitely knew that I’d seen two tongues touching.”

In his closing submissions, Kennedy told the jury: “I don’t submit that [the mother] is in any way trying to run a smear campaign, or she’s a bad person. She’s not ... she clearly cares for her kids and clearly was concerned by what she saw,” Kennedy said in his closing submissions.

Kennedy said from the footage shown to the court, one could see Capps talking throughout, and the mother approach. He said the footage did not show Capps touching tongues with a child.

The footage showed Capps, wearing a hat, crouching down closely face-to-face with the children. He could be heard in the footage saying:“Doctor, help me, my elbow keeps breaking.”

Kennedy questioned why the mother was not shocked or in horror, and pointed out there were at least five other educators in the vicinity.

“She’s seen him down, she’s had a chat [with her son] in the car, and she’s played this in her mind and has gone straight to panic stations,” he said.

Kennedy also raised how the boy was asked leading questions by police.

On Friday afternoon, the jury returned after almost 2½ hours of deliberating, to return a not guilty verdict to all four counts.

After the verdict, Capps was emotional and hugged his family in court.

When leaving the court, Capps declined to answer questions about the verdict, and his future in the childcare industry.

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