The Japan Times - UK nursery worker faces jail for serial child sex abuse

Vincent Chan, 45, is facing years in prison after he admitted to 56 charges including sexual assault and taking indecent images.

His victims included four girls aged three and four who he molested between 2022 and 2024 at the north London nursery where he worked.

Chan, dressed in a prison-issue grey tracksuit, entered the dock at the capital's Wood Green Crown Court flanked by three guards.

He glanced briefly towards the packed public gallery where the parents of the children he targeted -- some fighting back tears -- were sitting.

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

"They're harrowing cases for everyone in this country. The safety of children is, of course, paramount, and we're acting to keep them safe," Starmer told parliament.

Chan, who worked at the London nursery for seven years until he was suspended in 2024, filmed himself carrying out the abuse against the four girls during naptime at the day care.

He also admitted to downloading thousands of indecent images of children.

Prosecutor Philip Stott told the court Chan had "been filming children in his care who were clearly distressed".

- 'Dangerous, predatory' -

Before his employment in the nursery, Chan worked in 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.

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

"Vincent Chan is a dangerous and predatory individual, and the scale of his abhorrent offending is shocking," said the London Met police officer who led the investigation, Lewis Basford.

"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."

Chan admitted to sexual offences dating back to 2011.

In a statement after Chan pleaded guilty in January, the families of the victims from the now-closed Bright Horizons nursery in north London said they were "sickened".

"These further crimes raise deeply troubling questions about how safeguarding systems could have failed so badly that someone who was a prolific and persistent offender was able to secure employment as a nursery worker and offend without intervention for a number of years," the families said.

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

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.

He was caught after the manager of the nursery saw Bennett on CCTV images slipping his hands into a child's trousers. She reported him and he was arrested, and the nursery closed down.

K.Yoshida--JT