Former Nursery Worker Jailed 18 Years for Child Abuse

Vincent Chan, a 45-year-old former nursery worker from Finchley in north London, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Thursday at Wood Green Crown Court for sexually abusing young children in his care and committing a series of related offenses over more than a decade.

Chan pleaded guilty to 56 charges, including five counts of sexual assault by penetration and four counts of sexual assault by touching against four girls aged two to four at the Bright Horizons nursery in West Hampstead, where he worked from 2017 until his suspension in May 2024. He also admitted 11 counts of voyeurism, 23 counts of taking indecent images of children, six counts of making indecent images, six counts of outraging public decency, and one count of sexually assaulting a woman while she slept. The offenses involved at least 20 identified victims, ranging in age from toddlers to women in their 70s, though police believe others may exist.

The court heard that Chan's crimes began in 2007 when he joined a primary school in north London as IT support and later became a teaching assistant. There, he took upskirt videos of girls in classrooms, exposed himself in empty rooms, and created manipulated images...