<\/p>\n
Parents of one of the victims of Vincent Chan have said they live in \u201cconstant fear\u201d of the long-term damage the trauma will have on their child, as the paedophile nursery worker was sentenced to 18 years for sexual crimes spanning 14 years.<\/p>\n
Vincent Chan, 45, abused young children in his care \u2013 engaging in physical sexual abuse, taking obscene photos of them and creating others using software \u2013 as well as taking obscene images of himself in a classroom. He also set up cameras to watch women changing or going to the toilet, and sexually assaulted a woman while she was asleep.<\/p>\n
Judge Dodd KC told Chan he had behaved in a \u201csexually deviant manner\u201d in committing \u201cutterly wicked, perverse and depraved\u201d crimes against people whom he had owed trust \u2013 taking advantage of many of them as they slept to sexually abuse them.<\/p>\n
Referring to his victims, he told Chan many were too young to protect themselves. \u201cThey were defenceless.\u201d He added: \u201cThere are so many of them: from the children involved to their parents; those who worked alongside you and those who were close to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dodd gave the example of one child too young to write her own victim impact statement, but whose pain was clear in the statement made on her behalf. While many parents placed some blame on themselves for being unable to protect their children from Chan, he said they bore no responsibility. The responsibility was Chan\u2019s alone.<\/p>\n
In comments read out by the prosecutor, the parents said the trauma was compounded by the knowledge Chan had recorded the abuse. \u201cAs parents, we live with constant fear about how it may affect our child as she grows,\u201d they said. \u201cOur child was harmed without the ability to protect herself. She was harmed at a time when she should have been safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chan, from Finchley in north London, pleaded guilty to 56 charges. For a decade from 2007, he worked at a school where he upskirted pupils. He worked at a nursery for nearly seven more years, where he filmed himself abusing four children at a since-closed branch of Bright Horizons in West Hampstead, north-west London.<\/p>\n
At his sentencing at Wood Green crown court on Thursday, friends and relatives of those he abused told Chan he had profoundly broken their trust. One of the victims said the abuse to which Chan had subjected her had left her fearful she was being watched whenever she went to a bathroom.<\/p>\n
His crimes came to light when he showed a colleague two non-sexual videos of children in the nursery. The former colleague reported him to management, who spoke to police.<\/p>\n
Detectives initially arrested him on suspicion of child cruelty and seized dozens of electronic devices, for which he refused to give passwords. Once they were cracked, detectives found more than 1m images and videos of child abuse, and reviewed 300 hours of material \u2013 leading to his rearrest and the further, more serious charges.<\/p>\n
Officers have said more than 600 pupils passed through the school while Chan was working there and the nature of some of the photographs he took means they are unlikely ever to be able to specifically identify which of them he victimised.<\/p>\n
While police believe they have found all the devices containing evidence of the abuse of children, and that that offending can be isolated to his two places of work, they fear it could emerge he has abused more adult women in the wider world.<\/p>\n
In December, Chan pleaded guilty 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, he admitted 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.<\/p>\n
The judge sentenced him on five lead counts to 26 years; 18 of them to be served in prison, with a further eight years on extended licence. He told Chan he would become eligible for parole two-thirds of the way through the custodial portion of his sentence and, if released, would serve the remainder of that portion on licence; as well as the eight years of extended licence. He was given separate sentences on the other 51 charges to run concurrently.<\/p>\n
Bright Horizons faces legal action by a group of families who had children at the nursery. After the sentencing hearing, a lawyer for those families welcomed the sentence, but said the full scale of Chan\u2019s offending remained unknown, and that \u201cevery child who suffered must see justice done\u201d.<\/p>\n
Bright Horizons said: \u201cThis is a distressing time for families and all those impacted by Vincent Chan\u2019s horrific crimes and our thoughts are first and foremost with them. Keeping children safe is our most important responsibility. Vincent Chan broke that trust.\u201d<\/p>\n
An NSPCC helpline has been set up for anyone affected by Chan\u2019s offending, on 0800 028 0828, which operates from 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday and 9am-6pm at weekends.<\/p>\n