Childcare worker jailed for 'cruel and sadistic' assaults on toddlers

Edwina Ling pleaded guilty to more than 80 counts of assault involving three toddlers. (Supplied)

Edwina Amy Ling, 48, was sentenced to four years' jail with a non-parole period of one year.

Ling pleaded guilty to 80 counts of common assault and two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm.

The offending involved three toddlers at Injinoo Child Care Centre between August and September 2024.

A Queensland childcare worker has been jailed for four years after pleading guilty to more than 80 counts of assault involving three young children.

Edwina Amy Ling, 48, pleaded guilty to 80 counts of common assault and two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm in Cairns District Court on Wednesday.

The court heard Ling's offending involved three children aged between 13 months and two-and-a-half years.

The court heard she carried out the physical abuse inside a baby room at Injinoo Child Care Centre in remote Far North Queensland between August 30 and September 5, 2024.

District Court Judge Dean Morzone KC described Ling's offending as "monstrous, cruel and sadistic" and "a gross breach of trust".

Judge Morzone sentenced Ling to four years' jail with a non-parole period of one year.

Injinoo Childcare Centre operated outside the National Quality Framework because it received direct federal government funding. (Supplied)

CCTV vision was played to the court showing Ling grabbing a 13-month-old boy by the neck and head, repeatedly smothering his face with a cot mattress and pillow, pulling his head back, hitting him on the head, putting her foot on his face and kicking him across the floor.

Vision played to the court also showed Ling at various times shaking the child, throwing him onto a beanbag, lifting him by one arm, mock punching near his face, throwing a playpen at him, and forcefully pushing and throwing him down while he slept.

Ling had initially also been charged with torturing the child, but this charge was later dropped.

The parents of one of the children, who was 13 months old at the time of the assaults, told the ABC the ordeal had destroyed their trust in the childcare system.

The parents did not attend the sentencing but in an impact statement read out in court they said they felt betrayed by Ling, the childcare centre and the education department.

"We trusted that our son would be safe and cared for and he wasn't. We felt there was a lack of support given and failings within the childcare centre itself," they said in their statement.

"She [Edwina Ling] chose to physically abuse our child, and others, not once but multiple times over