Paedophile nursery worker could have been stopped sooner, says former colleague

Paedophile nursery worker could have been stopped sooner, says former colleagueJust nowShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleEleanor Layhe,Hayley HassallandJenny Parks,BBC Local Investigations"I was told I was imagining it" - Bessie Martin says her concerns about Nathan Bennett were ignoredWarning: This article contains content some may find distressing.Serious concerns about a suspected paedophile childcare worker were ignored for months by nursery managers, a BBC investigation has been told.A former employee at Partou King Street Nursery in Bristol says she alerted management to Nathan Bennett's behaviour before it was discovered he had been abusing children.Bessie Martin told bosses that Bennett would hold children for too long, she says, often sitting them on his lap out of view of CCTV. Her concerns were dismissed, she says, and she was told she was "imagining it".Bennett was sentenced to 30 years in prison in February for sexually abusing five boys aged two and three.Partou has told the BBC it "actively encourages" reporting of concerns and has implemented recommendations to "strengthen safeguarding governance further and enhance oversight across the organisation".Although the King Street nursery closed last December, Partou is one of England's biggest nursery providers with more than 100 sites.The BBC has found more Partou nurseries were given official notices to improve safeguarding, safety or welfare than the average in England after Bennett's arrest.Another chain, Bright Horizons - which runs 270 UK nurseries - also received a higher than average number of Welfare Requirements Notices (WRNs) from the regulator Ofsted, following the arrest of another paedophile, Vincent Chan, in London.Before the arrests of Bennett and Chan, the figures for both nursery chains were much closer to the national average.Ofsted has told the BBC it increased its inspection work into Partou and Bright Horizons after both cases e...