I'm fighting to put CCTV in every nursery. We must never have another Vincent Chan, writes Tulip Siddiq

Warning: This article contains distressing details

I’ve dealt with high profile emotional cases such as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, where her young daughter looked me straight in the eye and said she knew she could count on me to ‘get mummy home’. Or the mother of the young Ukrainian sisters who were stuck in dangerous conditions in Montenegro on the way to my constituency.

But nothing could have prepared me for the last few months when it emerged that a paedophile had been operating in a local nursery for seven years, preying on children and babies.

The details are hard to stomach. Vincent Chan inflicted multiple counts of sexual assault on children by penetration, and by taking indecent photographs of children, including category A images depicting the most serious abuse.

The most terrifying part is that he was only caught after he was reported for neglect, and his devices were seized during the investigation. Not only had he recorded his crimes on his personal devices, but he’d also used nursery iPads to film his poor victims.

Parents have said to me that his actions have caused permanent heartache, echoing through their families, causing countless painful waking hours and psychological corrosion.

I’m trying my best to support my constituents through the worst experience of their lives. It is truly commendable that, alongside processing the cruel violation of their children's babyhood, they are trying to ensure this never happens again to others.

Suggestions include a parental flare system which would allow easy reporting for risk patterns and an escalation mechanism for concerns in early years settings; a statutory minimum requirement that two adults must be present within providers of a certain size which would reduce windows of opportunity for abuse; minimum safeguarding protocols for digital devices so devices used around children are technically restricted to only upload to approved internal systems; and the requirement of nurseries to have CCTV.

The call for CCTV requirements has been gathering pace, thanks in part to the parents of Genevieve Meehan, John and Katie, who have bravely pushed for greater oversight since the death of their daughter in 2022.

Their call must lead to action. I have raised it with the Prime Minister.

Alongside parents from my constituency, we are asking the government to consider amending ICO guidance and legislation to require nurseries to operate safeguarding CCTV in all rooms with secure local monitoring, audited retention, carefully limited remote access for parents and strict access controls. Where remote access is permitted, it should be via authenticated, child-specific logins and governed by clear safeguarding and data protection protocols.

Parent A told me the nursery in question had CCTV when their child first started there, but it was stopped a few years later due to rising costs. Parent A feels very strongly that their child might have been spared this ordeal if the CCTV had been in operation throughout.

I recognise there are many concerns about implementing CCTV across nurseries because of the potential for abuse. Robust parameters and protocols will be vital, but my constituents, who have spent the last few months living through every parent’s worst nightmare, argue that the overwhelming, thoroughly researched view is that safe routes are available.

These routes balance privacy concerns and the risk of misuse with the need to protect children and parents from every family’s nightmare.

CCTV isn’t the silver bullet, but it would be one step closer to ensuring that the likes of Vincent Chan are stopped in the future.

My constituents will be living with this experience for the rest of their lives, but others needn’t.

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Tulip Siddiq is the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate

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