Nursery worker accused of hurting babies ‘got fed up if she couldn’t vape’

A Montessori nursery worker accused of deliberately hurting dozens of toddlers in her care says she was addicted to weed and vapes at the time and ‘would get fed up’ if she could not smoke, a court has heard.

Roksana Lecka, 22, is said to have ‘badly harmed’ 23 children while employed at the £1,900-a-month Riverside Nursery in Twickenham, south-west London, between January and June last year.

She is also accused of assaulting or ill-treating another infant at the Little Munchkins Montessori Nursery in Hounslow, west London, in October 2023.

During her trial at Kingston Crown Court, jurors have seen CCTV footage of Lecka appearing to pinch children, allegedly leaving one ‘writhing’ in pain and drawing gasps from parents watching from the public gallery.

Lecka got the job at Riverside, which follows the Montessori method of teaching, involving children’s ‘natural interests’ instead of formal practices, in January last year.

Jurors have heard there were no concerns raised when she applied, complete with a reference from another nursery as well as the families of two children she had looked after.

It was a colleague who eventually raised a alarm, claiming to have seen Lecka assaulting a boy by pinching his legs.

Jurors have heard a review of CCTV footage also showed her pinching his nose, body, wrist and mouth.

The court has heard evidence that Lecka was not her ‘normal bubbly self’ towards the end of June.

Giving evidence, Lecka said she would ‘smoke cannabis quite regularly with my boyfriend’ until very late at night.

She said: ‘I was really addicted to vapes, I would smoke two little crystal disposables a day. I was vaping in nursery. Because if I did not smoke, I would get agitated and fed up.

‘I couldn’t keep asking to go to the toilet. Any opportunity I would take. I would be really moody and fed up.’

Of one alleged assault, in which she is said to have ‘smacked’ a young girl while vaping, she said: ‘I had two to three tokes, that would be my normal amount. I did not smack her. I put my arm around her really quickly.

‘I do not accept smacking her in the face. I think she’s distressed and tearful because she’s just woken up from a nap.’

But in her closing speech to jurors, prosecutor Tracy Ayling KC asked them to consider whether the footage showed ‘innocuous or innocent squeezes’, like Lecka claims, or pinches and rough treatment.

‘If she was tired, grumpy and feeling put upon by others, is what we see her taking it out on children by hurting them?’ she added.

‘There are, of course, some clips where Ms Lecka – as we put it – keeps going back for more.’

Arlette Piercy, defending, told jurors in her closing address that there were times when Lecka ‘could simply not cope – she had not slept enough, she had been burning the candle at both ends, she was under too much pressure and she cracked’.

She said: ‘That you may think is the picture here, rather than the prosecution seeks to make of a young woman in a sense… rotten to the core, who set out on a sad sustained campaign of abuse.’

Lecka denies 16 counts of child cruelty. The court has heard she has admitted seven similar offences.

The trial continues.

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