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A Sydney day care worker facing more than 320 charges over his alleged abuse of 150 children can now be identified after the Herald and police fought to lift a year-long gag order over his name.
Detectives hope heart-wrenching photographs, including a dinosaur puffer vest and a pink and gold backpack, will help parents identify 22 more children allegedly preyed on by the man trusted with their care.
Hamish Alexander Edward Tait was arrested by the Australian Federal Police in July 2025 and charged with using children to make abuse material, but the public has never heard his name.
Tait had come onto the radar of authorities after allegedly uploading one of his recordings to a cloud server.
His identity was suppressed to “HT” at his first appearance in court at the request of the AFP to protect the investigation.
Investigators ultimately seized approximately 2.5 million files from his electronic devices. Operation Moonbi has since discovered 158 alleged child victims in the files.
Of that number, 136 children have been identified and 22 are unidentified, despite the tireless work by victim identification teams.
The AFP on Friday laid an additional 137 charges against Tait. They include producing child abuse material, filming a person in a private act and sexual touching – which relates to allegedly posing the children to photograph them.
Tait is now facing 329 charges in total, making him Australia’s most prolific alleged abuser in a day care setting. The scale of the alleged offending means that if found guilty, he will have abused more children than any other childcare worker in the country’s history.
The AFP has information suggesting Tait worked at 62 centres through his career, but the alleged abuse has only been identified at 10. Tait’s alleged victims, spoken to by investigators, are located across Australia and the United Kingdom.
Tait, this masthead can now reveal, had worked in the industry for years at a large franchise called Fit Kidz, which has branches across Sydney’s north-west.
Fit Kidz Box Hill posted photographs of Tait with children dressed in colourful costumes and wigs for his 15th anniversary with the group.
He described himself as a “founder/facilitator and educator” of Fit Kidz at the service in one online profile.
Tait’s online resume said that from 2019 he went on to become the “owner-operator” of Wild Earthlings, a business which took children on bushwalks around Sydney.
Wild Earthlings was promoted by a Fit Kidz centre at Dural South as an interactive stall and “bush kindy service aimed at reconnecting children to the natural world” in October 2024.
It claimed to have four locations around Sydney – Glenorie, West Pennant Hills, Alexandria and Wolli Creek.
Photographs from Wild Earthlings shows Tait playing the didgeridoo to children and speaking with them in bushland settings.
“I am an early childhood educator by profession which means I love seeing children explore and learn about their world,” Tait wrote online.
“Capturing the beautiful world of children in a candid, innocent and natural way is something I take so much joy in.
“Here are some samples of the wonderful children I have had the pleasure of photographing. I would love to see you and your little ones for a session very soon!”
Soon after Tait’s arrest, almost all signs of him were scrubbed from the social pages of Fit Kidz and other learning centres, while his Wild Earthlings site was deactivated, along with all private social pages.
Tait has made no application for bail since his arrest last year.
The AFP’s non-publication order covering Tait’s identity allowed them to identify and reach out to impacted families without a media frenzy.
The Herald last year agreed not to challenge the AFP’s non-publication order to allow the investigation to be properly handled – with July 1 becoming the deadline to name Tait.
In a court document, the AFP said they wanted to name Tait to help parents identify the last 22 children in the files, using swatches of clothing patterns and distinctive items.
“Whilst it is likely that some victims may never be positively identified due to the nature of the images … there are some images where I consider that a level of public outreach could assist in positively identifying additional victims,” AFP Commander Brett James wrote in the document.
James said the AFP wanted to release “sanitised images” on a website along with a list of the centres where he worked, to identify the children.
“(Two images) depict a puffer vest with a distinctive dinosaur pattern and a pink and gold backpack,” James wrote.
The unique items could be recognised by parents, who could come forward to police, detectives hope.
Police want to establish a local contact point which would allow parents to easily get information about the case and contact detectives with information.
Tait launched an eleventh-hour bid to keep his name secret one day before the order expired. The case returned to Parramatta Local Court on Monday for a hearing into whether the order concealing his identity should be made permanent.
Tait argued his right to a fair trial would be put at risk if his name was released in connection with the allegations.
But this masthead’s executive counsel, Larina Alick, told the court that the sheer numbers of alleged victims and centres in Operation Moonbi has made it impossible to keep the man’s identity secret.
“The accused’s name and workplaces are already not a secret, there has been disclosure by the AFP to 121 families in the local community,” Alick said on Monday.
“The idea this is somehow a secret to be protected is not true. The social media posts indicate this is the worst-kept secret in that community.
‘I do not accept publication of the accused[‘s] name and workplaces will cause incurable prejudice … to the contrary I find a NPO would frustrate attempts of the Australian Federal Police.’
Judge Stuart Devine
“Of course people will talk.”
Alick said identifying the workplaces, but not the man himself, would cast aspersions on all male staff in the centres.
“They will all be accused of these very serious offences, including the other men who work there … all of those men become ‘the accused’ if we can’t name this man,” Alick said.
Judge Stuart Devine was “not convinced” that media publication of the allegations against Tait would prejudice a jury when it comes to trial.
Further, Devine said, it was significant that the AFP needed to identify Tait’s workplaces publicly to carry on their investigations.
“In this case the applicant’s evidence has not persuaded me,” Devine said.
“I do not accept publication of the accused[’s] name and workplaces will cause incurable prejudice … to the contrary I find a NPO would frustrate attempts of the Australian Federal Police.”
Furious parents over the last fortnight have fired off emails, DMs and formed social media groups urging for the man to be publicly identified.
Some parents were at the hearing on Monday, eager for the name to be released.
One former employer also released a statement saying they wished Tait would be named, so they can properly address the fury from parents.
The AFP’s lawyers warned the court the investigation would be “prejudiced” if the names are kept secret any longer, because they will prevent the public from helping.
“The AFP should have the opportunity to identify the remaining potential victims,” the AFP’s lawyer said.
“The AFP’s approach is not to name the target of the investigation. The difficulty is identifying the places at which he worked will essentially identify him … It’s an all or nothing situation.”
The AFP set up a similar contact point after asking a court to lift a suppression order over confessed childcare paedophile David James, to identify the centres in which he had worked.
The Herald was in that case also aware of James’ identity and fought to have the order lifted only once investigators had reached out to directly impacted parents.
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