A paedophile nursery worker has admitted a host of new sex offences including filming up the skirts of girls as they sat in a classroom.
Vincent Chan, 45, is facing years behind bars after pleading guilty to 30 new offences in court today.
Last month he admitted sexually abusing children in his care in what officers described as among ‘the most significant and disturbing’ investigations in recent history.
He admitted molesting girls aged three and four while working at the £2,000-a-month Bright Horizons nursery in Finchley Road, West Hampstead, north London.
He filmed himself carrying out the abuse, during naptime at the nursery, and also confessed to downloading thousands of indecent images of children.
He appeared at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court this afternoon via video link from HMP Pentonville to plead guilty to 30 new charges.
This included: 12 counts of taking and making of indecent images of children; one count of sexual assault; 11 counts of voyeurism; and six counts of outraging public decency.
The offending relates to 16 victims, 10 of whom were children at the time.
Paedophile nursery worker Vincent Chan has pleaded guilty to 26 new sexual offences today
Chan, a British national of Chinese heritage, will be sentenced on February 12 for all 52 offences that he has now admitted.
In a statement released through law firm Leigh Day, the families of children previous;y in Chan’s care said: ‘We are sickened to learn that Chan committed appalling offences apart from his time at Bright Horizons Finchley Road.
‘Our thoughts are first and foremost with those affected by these new charges.
‘Understandably, 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 harm caused by crimes like these does not end in court; victims and their families live with the consequences every day. Safeguarding is meant to protect children, and when it fails, accountability cannot stop with one individual.
‘Organisations and those responsible for enforcing safeguarding standards must answer too.
‘No parent should have to wonder whether the most basic checks, protections and accountability are optional.’
Helen Reddy from the Crown Prosecution Service said: ‘I’m very pleased Vincent Chan has admitted to these additional offences and thereby avoided the need for a rial.
‘Crimes against children are particularly distressing and clearly the aggravating feature of his offending was that Chan was in a position of trust.
‘It is hoped that thanks to the excellent work of the CPS and the police, he will receive a lengthy sentence for all his offending and will no longer be a risk to children.’
In the new charges, Chan has admitted taking indecent images of children in 2024 and 2025, as well as outraging public decency offences in the classroom – at an unspecified location in north London – between 2011 and July 2017.
One of Chan’s videos, from June 2011, showed him filming a girl ‘from under a classroom table with the camera angled directly at her legs’, the court heard.
Sixteen images were identified of a schoolgirl taken ‘from under a classroom table with the camera angled in a manner designed to capture intimate parts of her body’.
Chan also had 13 images from 2016 showing ‘two unidentified female child victims with the camera angled in a manner designed to capture intimate parts of her body’.
In June 2017, Chan admitted ‘taking three images of a male holding an exposed penis whilst in classroom’, and having a video showing a solo sex act in a classroom.
In July 2017, Chan admitted ‘taking seven photos of him holding his exposed penis in a classroom’.
Chan also pleaded guilty to taking indecent images of children between 2011 and 2016, sexual assault of a female in 2011, and nine counts of voyeurism involving the covert recording of people as they did private acts.
Chan began working at Bright Horizons in 2017, passing an advanced vetting process to become an ‘art specialist’.
He went on to become a nursery nurse and then was promoted to room leader, but asked to be demoted back to nursery nurse.
His duties included feeding, clothing, cleaning and interacting with the children, tasks that required a high degree of trust and safeguarding.
He was first investigated in May 2024 when an anonymous safeguarding complaint was made against him, accusing him of neglect.
He was arrested the following month when police later discovered ‘humiliating’ videos of some of the children, which included them falling asleep while eating, which Chan had overlaid with music for ‘comedic’ purposes.
Chan was suspended from work. It was only a year later, while Metropolitan Police were investigating the neglect allegations that they first found evidence of his child sexual abuse.
Indeed, detectives 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.
He was further arrested and remanded in custody ahead of his guilty pleas last month.
It comes more than 15 years after paedophile nursery worker Vanessa George filmed and distributed videos of herself sexually abusing 30 children at Little Teds in Plymouth, Devon.
She was jailed indefinitely in 2009 and was told she would serve a minimum of seven years but she was released in 2019 despite still refusing to hand over a full list of all the children she sexually abused.
It was revealed earlier this month that nurseries could be required to install CCTV following the Chan case.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson announced a local child safeguarding practice review in December to ‘learn every lesson we can to make sure that crimes like this are guarded against at every step and every stage’.
Pressed at the time to mandate CCTV in nurseries, Ms Phillipson said this could lead to other forms of child abuse if footage was misused.
She appointed an expert advisory group to develop guidance for the sector on the safe and effective use of CCTV.
Education minister Olivia Bailey then appeared to go further as she told the Commons the Government was ‘considering the mandatory use of CCTV in early years settings’ as part of the review.
This came in response to Labour former minister and MP for Hampstead and Highgate, Tulip Siddiq, who said: ‘The Secretary of State will know about the horrific sexual abuse case in one of my local nurseries.
‘So could I ask the Secretary of State, would she introduce mandatory CCTV in nurseries so that we can use it as a safeguarding tool?’
Speaking at education questions, Ms Bailey replied: ‘I thank (Ms Siddiq) for her advocacy for her constituents in what has been an absolutely appalling case, and my thoughts remain with all of the children and families who have been affected.
‘The safety of our children comes first, so we are considering the mandatory use of CCTV in early years settings through our review, which we are getting under way rapidly.’