The Japan Times - UK nursery worker jailed for 18 years for 'wicked' serial child sex abuse

Vincent Chan, 45, who admitted a raft of 56 charges including sexual assault, was described in court as "every parent's worst nightmare".

Passing sentence, Judge John Dodd told him he was guilty of an "utterly wicked, perverse and depraved" campaign of sexual abuse.

"You became a sexual predator and someone who had clearly lost all sense of moral compass," he said, adding Chan's victims had been "too young to alert anyone as to what you were doing, they were defenceless".

Chan's victims included four girls aged three and four whom he molested between 2022 and 2024 during naptime at the north London nursery.

Chan, dressed in a prison-issue grey tracksuit and flanked by three guards, showed no emotion as he was sentenced at a court in north London.

Some of the victims and families of the children involved watched in tears from a packed public gallery.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Wednesday said the government was consulting on whether to make security cameras mandatory in nurseries, with multiple cases of abuse in UK child care centres coming to light in recent years.

Chan, whose offences date back to 2011, worked at the London nursery for seven years until being suspended in 2024 when his crimes came to light.

Before being employed at the nursery, he worked at a school in north London from 2007-2017 where he was guilty of filming up young girls' skirts in a classroom and also filming solo sexual acts in the location.

Prosecutor Philip Stott told the court Chan's offending had undermined trust in nurseries.

He said it had not only harmed the children he admitted abusing "but also every family who entrusted their children to his care".

"It is every parent's worst nightmare. Families can't put into words the distress caused by receiving such a letter out of the blue" informing them their children might have been involved, he said.

- 'Dangerous, predatory' -

Police also discovered films and videos he had secretly taken of girls and women changing or using the toilet.

He also admitted to taking indecent pictures of children in 2024 and 2025, when he was no longer with the nursery or the school.

One woman said that learning he had filmed himself sexually assaulting her as she slept in 2011 had left her feeling "violated".

"You committed a continuous, daily betrayal that has now reached back through time to poison every memory I once held dear," she said in a victim impact statement read to the court.

The Metropolitan Police officer who led the investigation, Lewis Basford, said Chan was a "dangerous and predatory individual".

"The scale of his abhorrent offending is shocking. Chan's history demonstrates to us that he has sought out positions of trust involving contact with young girls, which allowed him to commit his crimes unchecked for so long."

In a statement after the sentence, families of children who attended the now-closed Bright Horizons nursery in north London said Chan's crimes had "created a permanent ache in our hearts".

"The fear we feel about the cruel violation of our children will never dissipate. Ordinary memories from early childhood are now tainted with doubt, anxiety and guilt," they said.

According to law firm Leigh Day, 50 families concerned about safeguarding failures at Bright Horizons have joined legal action against the nursery provider, which they accuse of "brushing concerns aside".

Bright Horizons said in a statement that Chan's "actions were depraved and devious and go against the kindness and care our dedicated professionals provide to children each day".

"We are committed to understanding what happened so that we can learn from this terrible episode," it said, adding that the nursery chain was working with an expert to review their practices "to make sure we meet the most robust standards of safeguarding".

The sentencing comes days after another nursery worker, Nathan Bennett, was found guilty of multiple sexual offences against five boys aged two and three -- including rape and sexual assault -- by a court in Bristol, southwest England.

T.Ikeda--JT