yet another aledged sex abuce case at a nursery

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here

Am surprised there wasn't already a thread about this.

The nursery can cator for up to 90 children???
It's been a long time since mine were at nursery but I didn't realise they could be licensed to look after that many. Although frankly, I think there are a lot more bad nurseries out there where - whilst obviously not necessarily out rightly abusing the kids - at the very least, some children are neglected, roughly handled and shouted at by staff as soon as the parent goes. I wonder if offstead always tell the staff when they're coming for inspection or not?

The parents must be feeling awful. Poor DCs

well it just goes to show that crb checks aren't worth the paper they're written on doesn't it.

I guess a nursery can cater for as many children as they have the space/staff for.

The nursery I work at can take up to 120 it depends how much room there is, there is an actual figure on how much floor space each child needs. If there are enough staff to cover the ratios it shouldnt be a probem.

I'm assuming that the 120 are split throughout the week? What would the staff to child ratio be with that many?

This is awful. Its in my local area and a friend of mine sends her girls to the sister nursery. Apparantly ( although I had never heard these rumours myself until this all hit the news) the nursery in question had a strange reputation. A friend of a friend (so highly reliable hearsay!) who looked round said she just had an odd feeling about it. Someone else has said that the staff put all the babies in their coats at 4pm and had them lined up in their car seats ready for the parents to pick them up at anytime between 4 and 6. As I said, this is all rumour. I hope there is nothing in any of this for the children and parents sake.

My dd attended this nursery for 2.5 yrs until ofsted suspended their registration to investigate these allegations. It is a large, spacious nursery hence 90 kids on the roll - not all in the building at once, many part timers.

I think I have enough personal experience of the place to say with conviction that those rumours are complete rubbish, ladyhelen. Children certainly not bundled up in car seats ready to leave at 4pm, even when I picked up late it was more usual for us to be held up by chatty staff than the other way around.

dd has always been 100% happy there and very well cared for. The other parents I know with kids there agree. Consensus as I understand it is that no-one really believes any of the staff would deliberately harm a child and the media are reporting allegations in a pretty unbalanced way imo. Watching the glee and excitement on our local newreaders face this evening was pretty fucking grim and watching mums who know next to nothing about the place spreading further malicious rumours is also pretty shitty.

I understand that when allegations are made, they must be carefully looked into. But please can we acknowledge them at this stage as just that, allegations. The way the rumour mill is churning at the moment I'll be surprised if the nursery ever manages to re-open, even if all rumours are completely unfounded. Am very for dd losing all her little friends and lovely nursery staff so suddenly and this is not helping.

crb checks appear to do bugger all except inconvenience the innocent

I think sadly that it's inevitable that when a story like this is reported there will be people who come out of the woodwork and start stirring it - "Oh I always had a bad feeling about the place," it's the same when anyone is arested there's always someone who'll come out and say "Oh I always thought he/she was a bit dodgy, am not surprised in the least..." and even if the person in question is then released without charge, mud sticks.

And I think that in the case of a nursery it is doubly shocking because A it's so uncommon, and B it blows peoples' ilusions of trust out of the window.

I too think it's unlikely that the nursery will recover from this, but you can't exactly blame parents if they don't want their children to be looked after by people who have been at the centre of abuse alagations.

One child was taken to hospital with a 'suspicious' fracture and two others had fractures too. At the very best they are negligent.

Feelings, good or bad, are very important to me when I look at a nursery or school. I would never dismiss a bad feeling about a place as being rubbish.

agree totally. And what works for one doesn't necessarily work foor another and vice versa. So just because one person thinks that a nursery is fabulous doesn't mean that everyone will have the same view.

I also agree that this nursery has at best been negligent, and however lovely the staff appear to be, if my child were there I would be removing them asap.

I'm sorry scoobi, I meant no offence. I did point out they were rumours and as you have pointed out this sort of thing is bound to be said when something like this happens. I'm in the area with a DC at a nursery and of course rumour and speculation is rife. I hope the truth of what has happened comes out for ALL concerned in this.

posie, you could be right, but equally it's possible the fractures happened outside nursery. Or one of the children has undiagnosed brittle bones.

Your explanation is perhaps more likely, but we have to wait and see what the investigation finds.

I appreciate the apology ladyhelen. Sorry if I went off the deep end a bit, as you can imagine all this is fairly stressful

wannabe, I don't think its fair even to conclude negligence at this stage. As yet we've heard no evidence whatsoever that any of the fractures actually happened at the nursery. Nobody has been charged with any offence. My understanding is that police arrest suspects on the basis of very little, purely so any evidence gathered is later admissible in court, should charges be brought. The three people arrested have all been released on bail.

Regardless of how it all pans out, its a lose-lose situation. If the nursery has been at fault, and children have been harmed as a result, this is clearly horrendous. If the nursery have done nothing wrong, the rumours and "bad reputation" will likely persist and all the staff, children and parents will have lost out in a big way.

Having thought about little else recently, all I can say is that dd and the other children I know have shown not a hint of unhappiness or sign of abuse. dd has been a credit to her old nursery in the way she settled rapidly into her new one without the slightest sign of damaged confidence/faith in new adults. She is happy, confident and articulate. My gut feeling is that nothing was wrong there - if I'm wrong then I don't know how I'll ever trust my gut feeling about any childcare provider again

Hi Scoobi, I've been thinking about this a lot since we exchanged posts. You make some really good points about the effect of this on everyone and if it was my DC's nursery I would feel exactly the same way.

All the police need to arrest someone is reasonable cause. This could be someone making a statement saying X hit me (unlikely in this case as they are all children) or I saw X hit Y, or as seems likley in this case the injuries on the children would be enough. They arrest, interview under caution, hear what the suspect says (if anything) and make a decision to charge, do further enquries and bail them back or not charge at all. In this case, what will be happening is that they will be making further enquiries and because of the nature of the investigation they will be consulting with the specialist child abuse team at the Cps. I do defence based crime and actually dealt with a nursery nurse accused of assaulting a child.

YOu are right, I would think that the nursery will never recover from this. I hope for you and the rest of the parents ,you get some answers, but until the police investigation is over ( which in my experience will probably be at least 2 months) you probably won't and until then, I suspect the rumour mill will continue. I'm sorry to have repeated some of those rumours on here, Scoobi. I should have known better.