Ex-nursery worker admits further child sex offences

A former nursery worker who has admitted sexually abusing young children in his care in north London has pleaded guilty to a further 30 charges.

In December, Vincent Chan, 45, pleaded guilty to 26 charges including sexual assault by penetration, sexual assault by touching and making indecent images depicting the most severe category of child sex abuse.

At Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court on Thursday, Chan pleaded guilty to twelve counts of taking indecent photographs of children, six of outraging public decency, sexual assault on a female, and eleven counts of voyeurism.

The Met Police described him as a "dangerous and predatory individual", and added the scale was shocking.

He will be sentenced on 12 February for all offences that he has now admitted.

Warning: This article contains distressing details

The new charges relate to seven women and girls, and predate the charges he previously admitted to relating to a children's nursery.

The court heard they include filming up the skirts of girls as they sat in a classroom in north London where he worked from 2007-17.

Police also recovered images showing him exposing himself in a classroom in 2017, as well as videos, believed to be of Chan, depicting a solo sex act.

He has also admitted a campaign of voyeurism between 2011 and 2023.

The charges he admitted in December include molesting girls aged three and four while working at the Bright Horizons nursery in Finchley Road, West Hampstead.

He worked there for seven years until he was suspended in 2024, after a colleague raised concerns about his activities with the children.

The whistleblower complained that Chan had filmed a child falling asleep and set the footage to music, in a bid to entertain his colleagues.

The Metropolitan Police investigation that followed unearthed Chan's collection of more than 25,000 indecent images of children.

Among them were videos taken by Chan himself as he sexually assaulted some of the children at the nursery while they were sleeping at naptime.

'Offend without intervention'

Following the court hearing, lawyers at Leigh Day, who are representing some of the parents, said they were "sickened" to learn of Chan's further offending "prior to his time at Bright Horizons Finchley Road".

"These further allegations raise deeply troubling questions about how safeguarding systems could have failed so badly that someone actively offending was able to secure employment as a nursery worker and offend without intervention for a number of years."

Bright Horizons said in a statement in December it was "shocked and appalled" and had commissioned an expert review of its safeguarding practices.

The families of the nursery victims have been contacted directly and are receiving specialist support, while the NSPCC is running a helpline for all 700 families of children who attended the nursery during the time Chan worked there between 2017 and 2024.

Det Supt Lewis Basford, who led the police investigation, said: "Vincent Chan is a dangerous and predatory individual, and 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."

He said that Chan had "repeatedly exploited" trust and was a "danger to all women and girls".

Basford thanked the community for its support and urged anyone targeted by Chan to contact police.