‘Utterly wicked, perverse and depraved’: U.K. nursery worker jailed for sexually assaulting children

A courthouse is shown in an undated photo. (Pexels / Brett Sayles)

Warning: Disturbing content.

LONDON -- A British nursery worker was jailed for 18 years on Thursday for sexually assaulting young children in his care and filming the attacks, in what the sentencing judge described as “utterly wicked, perverse and depraved” abuse.

Vincent Chan, 45, in December admitted sexually abusing four girls, who were aged between two and four, between 2022 and 2024 while working at a nursery in north London.

He pleaded guilty to a total of 26 offences, including five counts of sexual assault by penetration and four counts of sexual assault by touching.

Chan also admitted taking indecent images of the children he abused and making indecent images relating to thousands of images found on his devices.

He later pleaded guilty to a further 30 charges, including taking indecent images and outraging public decency relating to when Chan worked in a London school between 2007 and 2017.

Chan sat in the dock at London’s Wood Green Crown Court, as a statement was read in court on behalf of the mother of one of the girls he abused, which said: “She was harmed at a time when she should have been safe.”

Judge John Dodd told Chan: “You, Vincent Chan, chose to breach the trust placed in you by parents and indeed your fellow staff members ... you did so in the most despicable of ways.”

Chan’s offending came to light after a colleague reported him in 2024 for suspected child cruelty, after he was filming children in distress. That triggered a search of his address and the discovery of footage of the abuse on his devices.

London’s Metropolitan Police said they found videos of Chan abusing children at the nursery, covertly-filmed footage of children from the primary school, voyeuristic videos of strangers and a video of Chan sexually assaulting a woman while she was asleep at his home.

In a victim impact statement, a representative of the families whose children attended the nursery said: “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.”

Reporting by Sam Tobin; Editing by Ros Russell, Reuters