Nursery paedophile Vincent Chan ‘every parent’s worst nightmare’, court hears

Nursery paedophile Vincent Chan who sexually abused and covertly filmed children in his care during a 15-year campaign of offending is “every parent’s worst nightmare”, a court has heard.

Vincent Chan, 45, is facing years behind bars for molesting girls aged two to four while working at the Bright Horizons nursery in Finchley Road, West Hampstead.

He has also admitted taking upskirt videos of schoolgirls in his previous job in a primary school, as well as spying on women and girls getting undressed in their bedrooms.

At his sentencing hearing at Wood Green Crown Court on Thursday, the extent of Chan’s covert filming and predatory sexual attention on children was revealed for the first time.

He has admitted filming up the skirts of primary school pupils as they sat at their desks, recording himself during a solo sex act in the classroom, and superimposing the faces of children on to pornographic images.

Chan has admitted sexual offending against women and girls spanning 15 years, with victims ranging from very young girls to teenagers, women, and in one case a pensioner in her 70s.

Chillingly, the court heard he stored images of one child when she was in his care at school and continue to track her on social media as she went through her teenage years.

Judge John Dodd KC, the Recorder of Haringey, is set to pass sentence on Chan later for 56 offences, and will consider whether to impose a life sentence.

In impact statements, victims said they have been left devastated and coping with lasting trauma after being told about the abuse, while Chan’s offending at the nursery and school – labelled “every parent’s worst nightmare” – has shattered the trust of parents in early years care.

Hundreds of families who sent their children to the nursery and school where Chan worked have been written to, to outline his offending.

“Families can’t put into words the distress caused by receiving such a letter out of the blue”, said prosecutor Philip Stott.

The parents of one of the children Chan abused at the nursery said they had been overwhelmed by the impact of knowing their child was “harmed at a time when she should have been safest”.

Her mother added that Chan gave the family a hand-drawn goodbye card when they left the nursery, which they originally thought was “a kind and thoughtful gesture”, but it has now turned into “something deeply distressing”.

One of the women Chan covertly recorded said she felt “violated and humiliated”, and is now paranoid about using the bathroom.

Another woman, who was sexually assaulted as she slept in an incident that Chan filmed, called him “a person who shows a total disregard for human dignity”.

Mr Stott said police recovered covert videos taken by Chan showing women and girls as they got undressed in their own homes, as well as a video he had shot of a girl naked in a pool.

Mr Stott outlined how Chan had taken multiple videos showing a teenage girl, spying on her when she was dressed in a towel and half-naked as she got changed in her own bedroom.

Chan had also superimposed images of the girl on to naked pictures of himself, mocking up sexual acts, and on one he wrote the word “jailbait”.

He also filmed the girl and a friend, both in their school uniforms, and he can be heard in the voiceover saying: “You are so sexy”.

In her victim impact statement, she said she has been left “shocked, disgusted, upset, unable to sleep and violated”.

Mr Stott said Chan had amassed around 2,000 images of the girl over the course of three years.

Chan has also admitted taking images and videos of himself sexually assaulting an unconscious woman in bed, he had covertly filmed three women using the toilet, and officers found a covert video of a pensioner getting undressed in her own bedroom.

“The victims are all women and girls,” he said.

“They are children as young as two years old, through to adults in middle age and at the other end of the spectrum an adult in her 70s, recorded getting changed in her own home.”

Referring to the woman who was sexually assaulted, the prosecutor said Chan took a series of videos over the course of around an hour and a half when she is “lying in a bed with her eyes closed, she is motionless indicating that she is asleep or unconscious, and therefore not consenting”.

Chan worked as IT support and as a teaching assistant at a primary school in Finchley for 10 years before he joined the Bright Horizons nursery in Finchley Road, West Hampstead, in 2017.

He was first reported to police by the nursery on May 25 2024, over concerns that he “had been filming children in his care who were clearly distressed, crying, wetting themselves or eating their own mucus, superimposing audio or imagery over the videos in an apparent attempt at humour”.

He was arrested on suspicion of child neglect, but searches of his electronic devices led officers to the sexual offending.

Among a mass of at least 25,000 downloaded indecent images of children, police found videos taken at the nursery itself of girls aged two to four years old who had been in Chan’s care.

Mr Stott said Chan had filmed himself abusing the children, during naptime, and he had organised the clips into folders labelled with the victim’s name.

When he was employed at the primary school, Chan took upskirt images of one girl and superimposed her face onto pornographic images.

He also appears to have continued his interest in her after she grew older and left the school, said Mr Stott, with Chan having “harvested” images from social media.

Mr Stott added that police had found “images of (Chan) exposing his penis in a classroom at the Primary School, and a video of the defendant masturbating in a classroom at the primary school”.

Police gathered evidence on Chan from 51 electronic devices, including iPads from the Bright Horizons nursery.

Nicholas Jones, for Chan, told the judge in mitigation: “He doesn’t want to be the person that he is, and he is willing to accept help.”

Anyone who wants to make a report to police about Chan can contact OpLanark@met.police.uk, or call 101 from within the UK, quoting the reference CAD3697/1DEC.

Separately, Bright Horizons is facing legal action by a group of 50 families who had children at the nursery.

A dedicated NSPCC helpline has been set up for anyone affected by Chan’s offending, on 0800 028 0828, which operates from 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday and 9am-6pm at weekends.

Chan was sitting staring towards the ground as details of his crime were outlined in court, with parents of some of the victims sitting in the public gallery.

He pleaded guilty in December to 26 charges: five counts of sexual assault by penetration, four of sexual assault by touching, 11 of taking indecent images of children, and six of making indecent images of children.

In January at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court, he pleaded guilty to 30 new charges: 12 counts of taking indecent photographs of children, six of outraging public decency, sexual assault on a female, and 11 counts of voyeurism.

The sentencing continues.