A nursery worker who mistreated 21 children in her care, including kicking one boy in the face, has been jailed for eight years.

Roksana Lecka was caught on CCTV pinching, punching and kicking her victims while working at the now closed Riverside Nursery in Twickenham, southwest London.

The 22-year-old was also seen aggressively covering a young boy’s mouth as he started to cry, in a pattern of behaviour described as “exceptional cruelty”. In one incident, she kicked a little boy in the face several times.

Lecka, of Hounslow, had previously pleaded guilty to seven counts of cruelty towards a person under the age of 16.

A jury at Kingston Crown Court convicted her of another 14 counts in June following a trial. She was found not guilty of three further counts of child cruelty.

Metropolitan Police detectives reviewed CCTV from a number of days in June 2024 that showed her pinching and scratching children under their clothes – on their arms, legs and stomachs.

Several of the children were seen being pinched dozens of times over the course of a day. Most cried and flinched away from Lecka.

Lecka could be seen vaping in another clip before taking a baby from a crib, who she was later filmed pinching and punching her side.

Several parents of the children who had been under Lecka’s care reported unusual injuries and bruising in March and May 2024.

When footage of the incidents was played in court, there were gasps from parents in the public gallery – some who were watching it for the first time.

Other instances of abuse included kicking a child who was on the floor, pushing children headfirst over cots, shoving a child onto a mattress in a sleep room, and aggressively covering a toddler’s mouth as he started to cry.

Parents call Lecka ‘worst kind of human’

Giving victim impact statements to the court, the parents of the children described Lecka as the “worst kind of human”.

And handing down a sentence, Judge Sarah Plaschkes KC told her: “You committed multiple acts of gratuitous violence.”

After describing the violence against the children, she added: “When you committed these acts of cruelty, you would look at the other members of staff to make sure that they were not watching you.

“Often the child would be quietly and happily minding its own business before you deliberately inflicted pain, causing the child to cry, arch, try to get away or writhe around in distress.

“Time after time, you calmly watched the pain and suffering you have caused. Your criminal conduct can properly be characterised as sadistic.”

Lawyers call for ‘further answers’ on abuse

Jemma Till, the expert lawyer at Irwin Mitchell representing families, said after sentencing that Lecka “abused her position of trust in cruellest way over a number of months”.

She then said that “serious questions remain as to how Lecka’s abuse was allowed to go unchecked for several months”, before adding: “Our focus is now on securing families, who will continue to be affected by Lecka’s actions for years to come, with the further answers they deserve.”

The parents of a child that Lecka admitted to assaulting also said through the law firm that “trying to come to terms with what our child suffered, has been incredibly difficult”.

“Whilst we’re relieved Lecka has been stopped and dealt with by the courts, the effects of what happened still impact on our family,” they said.

“We’re now nervous about letting our child out of our sight and into the care of others, a position no parent should find themselves in.”

Lecka ‘didn’t appear bothered’ during questioning

The Metropolitan Police noted that one of the charges against Lecka related to an incident at Little Munchkins in Hounslow, and said she appeared “visibly bored” during a police interview.

Detective Inspector Sian Hutchings, the senior investigating officer in the case, told the PA news agency that the former nursery worker has “never given any explanation for her behaviour and what she’s done”.

During Lecka’s police interview, she gave no comment answers and “didn’t appear bothered by the seriousness of the allegations”, Ms Hutchings said.

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Gemma Burns, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said in a statement after sentencing that Lecka “repeatedly showed exceptional cruelty in her appalling treatment of these babies”.

She said: “No parent should have to fear leaving their child in the care of professionals, but the sheer scale of her abuse is staggering.

“Lecka was placed in a position of trust and her job required her to provide safety and protection.”

Nigel Farage is on course to be prime minister, according to a seat-by-seat YouGov poll which reveals the scale of Conservative implosion.

The YouGov MRP polling projection, based on a 13,000 sample taken over the last three weeks, suggests an election held tomorrow would see a hung parliament with Reform UK winning 311 of the 650 seats, 15 seats short of the formal winning line of 326.

In practice, once the Speaker and absent Sinn Fein MPs are accounted for, it would be all but impossible for anyone other than Mr Farage to secure the largest number of MP backers and thus become prime minister.

Reform UK has improved its position since the last YouGov MRP in June, when it was 55 seats short of a majority. The projection suggests 306 Reform gains, up from their current seat tally of five, which would be the biggest increase in any election in British history.

The projection of Commons seats in Great Britain puts Reform UK on 311 seats, Labour on 144 seats, Liberal Democrats on 78 seats, Conservatives on 45 seats, SNP on 37 seats and Greens on seven seats, with Plaid on six seats and three seats won by left-wing challengers.

Barely a year after Keir Starmer won a landslide, this result would see Labour lose around two-thirds of their existing seats, down from the 411 they won in last year’s general election.

This is significantly worse than the party’s 2019 result under Jeremy Corbyn when the party won 202 seats and is their lowest tally since 1931.

More than a third of Labour’s remaining seats would be in London, making them more reliant on London than any other British party is on any other nation or region.

Among the big-name casualties would be Yvette Cooper, Wes Streeting, Ed Miliband, Bridget Phillipson, Lisa Nandy and Angela Rayner.

The Conservatives would fare even worse, pushed potentially to the brink of extinction. They would lose two-thirds of their 121 seats won last year – which was already their worst result in their 190-year modern history – reducing their tally to 45 seats.

And even further back, it would be worse than any result they’ve ever suffered, all the way back to the formation of their predecessor party, the Tory Party in the 1670s.

This would put the Tories in fourth place behind the Lib Dems, and the first time they have not been one of the two biggest parties.

The Conservatives would be wiped out in both Wales and the South West, a heartland as recently as 2015, and left with just six seats in the north and one in Scotland.

Robert Jenrick, Priti Patel, James Cleverly and Mel Stride could be among the casualties. Almost 60% of their current front bench would lose their seats.

In theory, the Conservatives could line up with Labour, Lib Dems, Greens, Plaid, SNP, progressive left and Northern Ireland MPs to vote down a Farage premiership, but this is highly unlikely in practice. If they abstain, Mr Farage would still have enough MPs to become PM.

The projections suggest national vote shares of 27% for Reform UK, 21% for Labour, 17% for Conservative, 15% for Lib Dems, 11% for Greens, 3% for SNP and 1% for Plaid.

Some smaller, more recent YouGov polls have put the Reform UK total even higher.

The scale of the threat to Labour from Reform UK is laid bare in this MRP projection.

Three-quarters of Reform UK’s seats would come directly from Labour, while more than half of Labour seats would go directly to Reform UK.

The North East of England would be Reform’s strongest area with 21 of the 27 seats, followed by the East Midlands and Wales. Reform’s weakest areas are London, where they would have six out of 75 and Scotland where they would win five out of 57.

Scotland would see a resurgence of the SNP, an increase of 28 seats to 37 seats, with Labour left with nine seats.

This does not suggest Scottish Labour will be able to win control of the Scottish parliament at next year’s elections.

In Wales, Reform would have 23 seats, against Plaid’s six and Labour’s three, which implies there’s a strong likelihood of Labour losing control in the Welsh Sennedd elections next May.

Voters in Great Britain were asked by YouGov how they would vote in the event of an election tomorrow, even though one is not anticipated for three or four years. MRP projections come with a significant margin of error.

The central projection is that Reform UK gets 311 seats, but this could be as high as 342, which would deliver an overall majority, or as low as 271. The Tories could have as few as 28 seats and as high as 68 seats. Labour’s range could be from 118 to 185.

“It was, quite literally, you deserve to be raped, you N-word bitch,” Ella Mitchell tells me, standing in her kitchen, “and I can’t wrap my head around it.”

Warning: This article includes content that some readers may find distressing

Ella, 25, an administrative assistant in Leeds, is recounting her recent experience at an asylum hotel protest.

The abuse she says she’s had from protesters, calling for the hotel to shut, is shocking.

“Threats of sexual violence, rape threats, racial slurs,” she says, shaking her head.

“I think I will always find it a little bit galling to hear people say that they’re doing this to keep people on their streets safe.”

For several weeks now, Ella’s helped organise counter-protests outside the Britannia Hotel in Leeds.

The hotel houses 200 male asylum seekers and protests started in early August, organised under the slogan “Protect Our Kids”.

“We live in a time of immense misogyny and violence against women,” Ella says, but “the only incidences of sexual violence against women that they care about are ones that they can use to further their own agenda, to stir up more hatred around asylum seekers.”

I put it to Ella that there are some people at the protests who wouldn’t call themselves racists or far-right, as some of the counter-protesters claim them to be, but are local residents who feel ignored by the government and angry at small boat arrivals.

“I do understand,” Ella says, “that not every single person there is a seasoned far-right organiser, and I wouldn’t want to claim as such.

“However, if you are stood next to someone who is Sieg Heil-ing [the Hitler salute], for example, or next to someone who is yelling racist abuse, week in, week out, then I think it does reflect on you.

‘They’re angry with the wrong people’

Protests and counter-protests outside asylum hotels have been going on all summer, sparked initially by those that began outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex.

For weeks, we’ve been speaking to people on both sides and found communities starkly divided.

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“We shouldn’t have to do this, should we?” a counter-protester tells me.

It’s Friday night and we’ve come down to see the Leeds protest for ourselves.

The numbers aren’t huge – a few dozen on both sides, flanked by police – but the rhetoric is aggressive and the atmosphere febrile. Insults are lobbed by people on both sides.

“We shouldn’t have that hatred on this side of road,” Sally Kincaid says, “against people who live on this side of the road.”

Sally, a retired teacher and seasoned protester, has worked with refugee communities for decades.

“I can understand people being angry, but they are angry at the wrong people.

“Refugees are not to blame for the fact that there’s bad housing or overcrowded schools.

“And people keep being told that they’re getting all these things – they’re not! They are just waiting and waiting for the Home Office to make a decision.”

Sally then tells us about Hossein, a young refugee from Iran who she fostered from the age of 15.

“He’s lovely,” Sally says, “and everyone that’s ever met him loves him to bits.

“Now, this lot would say he is a bad person.”

I tell Sally that, from our previous conversations with protesters, we know there are a lot of concerns about safety and rates of crime associated with migrants.

“It’s a myth, it’s a myth,” she says, pointing at protesters on the other side, “and it’s being stirred up to make the situation more polarised than it already is.”

‘There’s a lot of racism around and kids are scared’

A few days later, we go to Sally’s house.

We’d hoped to meet her foster son Hossein, who lived with Sally and her partner, Steve Johnston, for five years after he first arrived in the UK in the back of a freezer van.

Sally and Steve saw Hossein through college, driving tests and, after nearly a decade of waiting, getting British citizenship.

But Hossein isn’t there, and when I ask Sally why, she looks really sad.

“There’s a lot of racism around and kids are scared,” she explains. “That’s the tragedy of it.”

She describes her foster son as someone who “was very, very open on camera a few years ago” but says he is “now worried”.

“The amount of hatred on social media is awful towards refugees, even though he now has status.”

I ask Sally if she finds that painful to admit.

“Yes,” she says, “we sat and watched the TV the other night when [Nigel] Farage was talking about deporting Afghan women, and I just thought what’s going on?

“Why have we got ourselves into this situation where people who desperately want to contribute to society are scared to meet people like you.”

‘I don’t think wearing a dog collar exempts you from abuse’

It’s Friday night and, once again, we’re back outside the Britannia hotel.

Protesters and counter-protesters take their positions on either side of the road, and the chanting and name-calling – amplified on loud hailers and speakers – start being flung across the dual carriageway from both sides.

As we walk along the bank of counter-protesters, I see a man, wearing a dog collar and crucifix and quite clearly a member of the clergy, carrying a tray of homemade cakes.

He offers me one and I ask if they are for both sides of the protest.

“Yes we’ve offered them to both sides, and a sense of peace, in the midst of rising tension.”

I ask him what he means by “rising tension”.

“Well, I was last here three weeks ago, and I think the verbal abuse I got today,” he says, gesturing to the protest side, “is more than I had three weeks ago.”

“So to that extent, it does feel like the tension has raised slightly higher,” he adds.

The man, as it turns out, is Arun Arora, the Bishop of Kirkstall, the most senior member of the Church of England in West Yorkshire.

I ask him if he finds it shocking that someone who, in his words, has come in peace, should be the target of verbal abuse at these protests.

“I don’t think wearing a dog collar exempts you from abuse,” the bishop says.

“I think part of it is if you stand alongside those who are being dehumanised, those who are being degraded, those who are regarded the least, then you can expect to share in some of the same treatment that they get.”

‘Being polite about it doesn’t win’

I scan the crowd and see Ella, escorting groups of counter-protesters from a nearby car park to the meeting point.

She tells me no one walks here alone in case things get violent.

I also see Steve, Sally’s partner.

Like Sally, he’s been involved in the protest movement for years and I ask him about the language we hear being used by the counter-protesters, like chants of “Nazi scum” and “fascist scum, off our streets”.

Does he think it risks making a tense situation even more polarised?

“There are people over there,” he says, gesturing to the protesters on the other side, “who are clearly members of fascist organisations.”

He concedes, when I challenge him, that there will be some who won’t be, but says “by doing these sort of chants, we hope those people will go away and think ‘well why are they calling us Nazis?’

“People have [previously] stopped the rise of fascism by calling it out for what it is.

“Ignoring it or being polite about it doesn’t win.”