Nursery worker kicked boy in face and vaped in front of small baby
A nursery worker who kicked a young boy in the face as part of a harrowing campaign of abuse has been found guilty of child cruelty.
Roksana Lecka was caught on CCTV roughly placing children on the floor causing them to cry and vaping less than a metre from a small baby on more than one occasion.
The 22-year-old of Avro Place, Hounslow, 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 on Monday.
The trial followed a Met investigation, which found Lecka had abused children as young as ten months at two separate nurseries in Twickenham and Hounslow between October 2023 and June 2024.
Officers started to investigate Lecka in June 2024, after a member of staff at the nursery raised their concerns about her behaviour. They reviewed over 45 hours of CCTV from 28 June 2024.
Children's parents gave statements and shared pictures of injuries showing multiple red marks, bruises and scratched on the children. The victim's families received specialist support from officers.
Lecka was arrested at her home on 5 July on suspicion of child cruelty offences.
During an interview, she answered no comment to all questions and refused to acknowledge her actions when shown the CCTV footage. She was released on bail whilst officers within the Child Abuse Investigation Team continued enquiries.
Detective Sergeant Geoff Boye of Met Police's Public Protection Command said Lecka's offending was 'prolific'.
'Footage showed Lecka carrying out multiple assaults on the children in her care which included repeatedly pinching and grabbing children, dropping babies into their cots and on one occasion, she delivered several kicks to a young boy to the face and stepped on his shoulder,' he said.
'She was further arrested and charged on 25 July 2024 with 12 counts of child cruelty, 12 counts of actual bodily harm and one count of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent.'
Following an initial appearance in court, this indictment was amended to 24 counts of child cruelty against 24 separate children.
Lecka was convicted on Monday, 16 June of 21 counts of child cruelty. The jury found her not guilty on three counts. She will appear at Kingston Crown Court on Friday, 26 September for sentencing.
Detective Inspector Sian Hutchings of Met Police's Public Protection Command said: 'Despite being given multiple opportunities to do so, Lecka never admitted to her offences during the course of the investigation or gave any real insight into what caused her to do this. This has added more pain and confusion to the victims' families.
'These families left their children in Lecka's care, trusting her to take protect their children as well as the other staff at the nurseries clearly did.
'The footage of her offences against defenceless children was disturbing.
'I would like to praise the strength of the victim's families who have had to sit in court and watch footage of the abuse which Lecka inflicted on their children.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
33 minutes ago
- Telegraph
This Government is the most devious and dishonest in Britain's history
I thought this Government of Gaslighters had reached its apogee of untruth with Darren Jones's suggestion that most of the illegal migrants crossing the Channel were ' women, children and babies '. When it was pointed out to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury that the Home Office's own figures showed the crossings since January 2025 comprised 81 per cent adult men, he later conceded he 'could have been clearer'. 'I was telling a story about a visit I had to the border security command where I was shown a number of dinghies which did have women, babies and children in them', he insisted, prompting understandable cries of 'liar' on social media. But he's not the only Labourite who has been taking the public for fools. They're all at it. This week, Leader of the Commons Lucy Powell told the chamber, with a straight face: 'We never ruled out returning to the issue of a national inquiry [on grooming gangs].' Yes, that's the same Lucy Powell who accused Tim Montgomerie, the founder of the ConservativeHome website, of peddling 'dog whistle' politics on Radio 4's Any Questions, merely for asking whether she had seen a recent Channel 4 documentary on the scandal. 'Oh, we want to blow that little trumpet now do we', she sneered. 'Let's get that dog whistle out shall we'. Powell's fib came after Home Secretary Yvette Cooper performed a politically expedient u-turn and announced there would, in fact, be a judge-led national inquiry into the rape gangs scandal – having spent the previous year saying we didn't need one. Had the Government admitted it had got it wrong, and changed its mind, it would have been fine. But instead a succession of MPs insisted that they had always wanted a judge-led statutory inquiry and that it was all Kemi Badenoch's fault that the Conservatives hadn't already held one – even though Sir Keir Starmer had suggested that she would be 'jumping on a far-Right bandwagon' for doing so. Such is the utter hypocrisy of Labour's position that Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, of 'Tory scum' fame, called for the issue to be depoliticised, yet when asked by Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp if she would apologise for the Prime Minister's 'far-Right' slur, attacked the opposition for its inaction. Natalie Fleet, the Labour MP for Bolsover, herself a sexual abuse survivor, then took to the airwaves to attack the Conservatives for failing to do enough, while completely failing to mention all the Labour councillors and MPs who covered it up for fear of inflaming 'community relations'. When Telford MP Shaun Davies was the town's council leader, he opposed a local grooming gang inquiry. In 2016, he wrote to the home secretary and prime minister along with nine other local authority figures, saying: 'We do not feel at this time that a further inquiry is necessary.' Yet in a statement to The Telegraph this week, his spokesman insisted: 'To suggest Shaun Davies attempted to obstruct a local inquiry would be completely incorrect.' Do these people think we are as stupid as they are? And they wonder why trust in politics is at an all time low. Jess Phillips is the kind of self-righteous political narcissist who insists that anyone who disagrees with her is a gaslighter. Yet she too has taken this form of psychological manipulation to new heights with the claim, on Newsnight, that she had 'never turned a blind eye' to what was going on. The Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, who nearly lost her Birmingham Yardley seat to a pro-Palestinian Workers Party opponent at the last general election, rejected Oldham Council's request for national support for the inquiry. She repeatedly refused to acknowledge the racially motivated nature of the crimes and criticised the Conservative MP Katie Lam for raising the ethnicity of the perpetrators and yet told the BBC: 'I would never shy away from calling a problem what it is'. (She also once compared the Cologne sex attacks to 'a typical night out in Birmingham'). These were precisely the politicians who would regularly accuse Boris Johnson of being a liar. Maybe he was economically with the truth. But this Labour government has reached plumbed new depths of dishonesty that make Partygate look like, well, a piece of cake. I've checked the Labour Party Manifesto 2024 (preferable to sleeping pills if you're struggling to bed down in this heat), and there is no mention in there of either assisted dying or changing the abortion laws. Yet both have been ramraided through Parliament without the public even being consulted. So much for Starmer's pledge, on the steps of Downing Street almost a year ago, that: 'My government will serve you.' When he promised a 'return of politics to public service,' I don't think anyone thought it would mean bunging his union buddies huge payrises while the private sector, which employs 83 per cent of the total workforce, is shafted by Rachel Reeves's Budget. That was the biggest deceit of them all, that Labour wouldn't tax 'working people'. In fact, the £25 billion increase to employers' National Insurance contributions has done exactly that. When Rishi Sunak tried to do the same in 2021, the Chancellor personally lambasted the plan as a 'jobs tax'. She's another Labour politician who thinks we haven't kept the receipts. It's as insulting to the electorate as her continual claim that rising inflation and unemployment, combined with record business closures and a millionaires' exodus is absolutely nothing to do with her and all down to Donald Trump. This is weapons' grade gaslighting. Similarly, we are all supposed to believe that she reversed the cuts to the winter fuel allowance because 'the economy is doing better', even though we learnt this week that the UK has suffered the second highest fall in wealth of any major economy. Growth is down, retail sales are down, hirings are down – and despite what they say, it's all of Labour's making. Need we even get started on Starmer's hollow claim that he is 'standing up for Britain's interests' when he can't even seem to decide whether the murderous mullahs of Iran should have nuclear weapons that could wipe out western civilization? Yet again, he's being egged on by his bestie Lord Hermer, who gaslit the electorate by insisting it was a good deal that we paid £30 billion to give away the Chagos Islands to China-backed Mauritius. We're supposed to believe he's a cuddly respecter of human rights…who likens Tories and Reform to Nazis. And these inadequates seriously expect us to believe they are capable of running the country? That's the biggest con of them all.
Telegraph
34 minutes ago
- Telegraph
London synagogue ‘vandalised' amid Israel-Iran war
A London synagogue has been 'vandalised' amid the ongoing Israel-Iran war. The Metropolitan Police has launched an investigation into an attempted burglary while forensic inquiries continue. Images posted on social media by a community group show officers standing amid the debris at Gur Synagogue in Stamford Hill, north London. One image shows a wheelchair surrounded by plastic bags and a large kitchen knife on top of it, while others depict personal lockers pulled open with contents, including prayer shawls and papers, strewn on the floor. The Community Security Trust (CST), a charity that monitors anti-Semitic incidents in the UK, said that it had been made aware. A spokesman said: 'At a time when community tensions are already high, this is an appalling act of vandalism which has caused significant damage to a synagogue in Stamford Hill. 'We are in touch with the location and are providing support. We urge anyone with information to contact CST and the police as a matter of urgency. An X account called In Stamford Hill posted the photos with the caption: 'A shocking incident occurred overnight where the Gur Synagogue on Lampard Grove was vandalised with the Torah scrolls desecrated.' The Torah, the compilation of the first five books of the Jewish bible, is the central document of Judaism and has been used throughout the ages. According to data from the CST, there were 3,528 instances of anti-Jewish hate recorded across the UK in 2024, marking the second-highest annual total ever reported to the organisation. The group said the figure reflects 'the sustained high levels of anti-Jewish hate that have been recorded across the country' since the October 7 attacks. Among the incidents are cases of damage and desecration to Jewish property, threats, abusive behaviour and violence, and mass-produced anti-Semitic literature. Last week, Israel launched a wave of strikes on Tehran, the capital city of Iran, killing top military officials, nuclear scientists and civilians. Iran has since fired ballistic missiles in retaliation as both countries continue their attacks. Donald Trump, the US president, appeared to back down from joining Israel in its war with Iran, saying he will decide in the next two weeks if the US will intervene.
BreakingNews.ie
39 minutes ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Man who sent racist social media message to footballer banned from all games
A man who sent a 'vile and disgusting' racist message to a professional footballer on social media has been banned from attending any matches for three years, police said. Harry Dunbar, 20, from Fareham, Hampshire, sent racial slurs via Instagram to Christopher Wreh, following an FA Cup match between Tamworth and Tottenham Hotspur on January 12th. Advertisement When interviewed by police, Dunbar admitted sending the message because he had lost a bet, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary said. Police said Wreh had come on as a substitute for Tamworth in the game. When he later checked his Instagram, he found he had received a message from an account he did not know called 'Dunztagram'. Shocked, he posted a screenshot of the message including the username and then shared it on his social media. Advertisement 'After an amazing day today, this is the last thing I expected to see when I opened Instagram,' he wrote in the post. 'Nevertheless, thank you for all the support today. Fans were unreal.' This post was viewed more than 1.7 million times, and Wreh was contacted and sent personal messages by others who identified the account holder as Dunbar, who was living in Hampshire at the time. Wreh shared this with the dedicated football officer (DFO) for Tamworth at Staffordshire Police, who then passed this on to the UK Football Policing Unit and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary's dedicated Football Unit. Advertisement Dunbar, in Whiteley, was arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated malicious communications and his phone was seized. Although the Instagram account had been removed, it was identified that he was the owner of the 'Dunztagram' account'. In interview he then admitted sending the message because he had lost a bet. Dunbar was sentenced at Portsmouth Magistrates' Court on Wednesday, where he was handed a three-year football banning order, a 12-month community order of 200 hours unpaid work, and 10 rehabilitation activity requirement days. Advertisement Superintendent Adrian Hall, head of the operations unit for Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary, said: 'Just because Christopher Wreh was a footballer, Dunbar decided he had the right to send him a tirade of racist insults. 'Nobody should ever be subjected to such vile and disgusting abuse, regardless of what they do for a living. 'I am absolutely appalled by the racist language used by Dunbar, but immensely thankful to Christopher Wreh for his bravery in standing up to this horrible abuse and assisting the police investigation. 'Thanks to Christopher, this man will not have the privilege of going to football matches and that is an important result from this case, as racism doesn't belong in football stadiums or anywhere else in society.' Advertisement The Football Banning Order means Dunbar, of John Bunyan Close, is banned from every football ground in the country and unable to travel abroad when international games are happening for a period of three years.
