Parents of babies abused by nursery worker ‘upset by lack of explanation’

Parents have been left further upset by a nursery worker’s refusal to explain why she abused 21 babies, including by kicking one little boy in the face, police said.

Roksana Lecka, 22, was jailed for eight years on Friday after she admitted seven counts of cruelty to a person under the age of 16 and was convicted of another 14 counts by a jury at Kingston Crown Court.

Metropolitan Police detectives went through CCTV from Riverside Nursery in Twickenham, south-west London, that showed her pinching and scratching children under their clothes, and slapping them. In one incident she kicked a little boy in the face several times.

The Metropolitan Police said she had abused children at two nurseries between October 2023 and June 2024 – one of the counts related to Little Munchkins in Hounslow, with the remainder linked to Riverside, which has since closed.

Detective Inspector Sian Hutchings, the senior investigating officer in the case, told the PA news agency: “(Lecka has) never given any explanation for her behaviour and what she’s done, which… has only added to the upset for the parents, who have been immensely strong throughout the criminal investigation and been very dignified in their response.”

Lecka “was visibly bored” in the police interview, gave no comment answers, “and didn’t appear bothered by the seriousness of the allegations”, the detective told PA at New Scotland Yard.

This shocked and frustrated the lead investigating officers, Ms Hutchings said, and “only added to the upset being caused to the families because we were unable to provide any explanation to them, who were all left wondering why she has done this.

“She’s never shown any remorse or any empathy throughout the trial or the investigation.”

Asked if psychiatric reports revealed any cause to her offending, Ms Hutchings said: “We’ve got no insight. We’ve got nothing that can give us any sort of explanation, through all of our inquiries that have been completed, that would help us understand why she did what she did.”

Lecka did not target specific children, the detective added.

During a police interview, Lecka appeared to be fiddling with her hair while she was asked about a baby “on a mattress, he seems to be crying”.

The officer paused to say: “Sorry am I boring you?”

Lecka gave no comment answers, including when another officer put to her: “You’ve not told us that you’ve kicked one of the kids in the face.

“What if there were any serious injuries to that baby that could have caused him more harm down the line? And four weeks later we’re here again.

“Haven’t you got any empathy for any children, or any of the ones you’ve assaulted?”

After another no comment answer, the same officer said: “You’ve just sat here and gone no comment, so I’m going to go back to each parent and tell them, we spoke to you, she’s just sat here emotionless – nothing, nothing at all for these babies.

“These are children, you’re effectively abusing children, physically abusing children and you have got nothing but no comment to say and I’ve just never seen anything like it”.

Babies sustained “horrific bruising to their bodies” but none of their injuries were life-changing, Ms Hutchings said.

“It’s difficult to imagine how difficult it will have been for those parents to have had contact from the police to tell them that their child had been physically abused by the one person who was supposed to keep them safe,” Ms Hutchings added.

She told PA that offending like Lecka’s is rare and this is the first case of its kind that she has covered in her career.

Lecka worked at Riverside Nursery between January and June 2024, with a number of parents reporting unusual injuries and bruising in March and May that year.

Her crimes were discovered in June last year after she was sent home for pinching a number of children and appearing “flustered”, according to the Crown Prosecution Service.

A police investigation was launched in which CCTV was essential because the victims were too young to explain what happened.

On the first day of reviewing the video it became apparent that more children had been abused than initially thought.

More than 300 hours of CCTV was assessed by officers in 10 days and Lecka was arrested at her home on July 5 on suspicion of child cruelty.

The probe was conducted alongside Ofsted, the Kingston and Richmond Safeguarding Children Partnership, as well as health and children services, and “they were all just as shocked as we were”, Ms Hutchings said.

Lecka had previously worked as agency staff at several other nurseries but there were no reports “of a criminal nature”, she added.

She was also found not guilty of three further counts of child cruelty.