A Polish nursery worker and Twickenham worker, Roksana Lecka, the Hounslow Polish Child Abuser, accused of abusing 24 kids asserts that her sleep deprivation, resulting from cannabis usage and late nights with her partner, caused her to become ‘moody’ and ‘fed up’ when unable to vape at work, as presented in court.
Roksana Lecka is charged with severely injuring 23 children, all between 18 months and two years old, at a £1,900-per-month Montessori daycare in Twickenham, southwest London.
The 22-year-old refutes 16 allegations of child maltreatment but has acknowledged seven analogous offences committed while employed at Riverside Nursery from January 31 to June 28 of the previous year.
In October 2023, she was accused of a 24th crime of child maltreatment at the Little Munchkins Montessori Nursery in Hounslow, west London, which she also refutes.
Roksana Lecka, originally from Poland but relocated to the UK with her parents in her youth, is alleged to have inflicted ‘bruises’ on the youngsters by employing ‘considerable force’ while pinching, slapping, and grasping them.
Among the children to whom she has confessed to inflicting abuse include a small boy whom she repeatedly pinched before striking him in the face, and another girl whom she punched in the side, resulting in a jolt.
Detectives have reviewed over 400 hours of CCTV footage since initiating an inquiry on June 28 of the previous year, following reports from worried coworkers who observed Roksana Lecka’s purported cruelty.
The prosecution presented the jury with CCTV footage depicting the youngsters in distress, contorting in agony following the purported abuse, which left family members in the public gallery astounded during the trial.
Roksana Lecka, clad in a black jacket over a black t-shirt and dark pin-striped trousers, appeared in the dock at Kingston Crown Court on Wednesday, accompanied by her mother as the trial nears its conclusion.
The jury was reminded of the evidence she and her defence have given, including that she was ‘worn out’, had ‘bad period pains’ and was not her ‘normal bubbly self’ in the week leading up to June 28.
Roksana Lecka has admitted she was hooked on cannabis and vapes and was staying up until 3am with her boyfriend.
‘I was addicted to smoking weed and I was addicted to him,’ she told jurors.
Ms Roksana Lecka said when she got the job at Riverside in January 2024 she would ‘smoke cannabis quite regularly with my boyfriend’.
She added: ‘At that time 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.
‘It would be a couple of puffs and then I’d put it away… I would put it in my bra.’
In one alleged incident, Roksana Lecka is accused of leaving a baby in tears after ‘smacking’ her in the face twice while vaping.
But she claimed: ‘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.’
In her closing speech, prosecutor Tracy Ayling KC told jurors ‘taking cannabis and not being able to vape making her grumpy’ were ‘excuses’ made by Lecka.
‘If she was tired, grumpy and feeling put upon by others, is what we see her taking it out on children by hurting them?’
The prosecutor said Roksana Lecka was in ‘complete denial’ and questioned the defence’s arguments of her working long hours, often each worker looking after multiple children each.
Because it was busy doesn’t give you carte blanche to assault or ill-treat anyone,’ Ms Ayling said.
Lecka has also claimed, when cross-examined, that she does not have memory of many of the incidents, which she partially puts down to her cannabis consumption.
Ms Ayling told jurors: ‘We submit that it’s not about memory, it’s not about what Ms Roksana Lecka does or does not remember.
‘What it is about is what you can see on CCTV and – on count 24 – what the document and evidence shows you.
‘Using that CCTV and evidence, it’s about what you can infer the defendants’ intentions were. If you do that, say the prosecution, you can be sure from those counts outstanding in the indictment that she is guilty as charged.’
Speaking about the weeks leading up to June 28, Roksana Lecka said: ‘I remember being so tired because I wasn’t getting sleep. I was addicted to him [my boyfriend], I was over prioritising him.’
She also admitted by this point, she had long acrylic nails that were really ‘outgrown’, which the defence admitted is not something a nursery worker would want around ‘multiple children in a frantic environment’.
Roksana Lecka initially pleaded guilty to two charges of child cruelty, but later admitted to harming five other children.
The Crown’s case centres around whether Roksana Lecka ‘wilfully assaulted and or ill-treated the children in a manner likely to cause the child unnecessary suffering or injury to health’.
The jury must deliver verdicts on 17 counts, including children she allegedly left red marks and bruises on by pinching them.
Roksana Lecka is accused of the ‘rough treatment’ of children, including ‘pinching’, ‘slapping’ and ‘hair pulling’ which left the infants ‘writhing’ around in pain and crying.
Her defence claim the prosecution are trying to paint the picture of a defendant who is ‘rotten to the core’.
Speaking about her ‘teenage love affair’ with her boyfriend, defence lawyer Ms Arlette Piercy said: ‘There were times when she 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.
The trial has heard that Roksana Lecka was working as an agency worker at Little Munchkins on October 19 2023 when the first incident of alleged child cruelty took place.
At around 3.45pm, a baby room leader went to change a child’s nappies and claims she heard Roksana Lecka tell another infant: ‘You are so annoying.’
The colleague claims she then heard the baby ‘screaming’ and ‘crying’ but Roksana Lecka claimed she didn’t know what had happened when she was confronted.
While consoling the child, the staff member claims Lecka picked the baby up and started ‘feeling her thigh with her thumb’. When the staff member checked the baby, they found a ‘big red lumpy patch on her upper thigh’ and described it as a ‘pinch mark’.
The staff member then alerted her boss to the incident and asked for him to check the CCTV.
Describing Roksana Lecka’s behaviour, she said: ‘She was sweating and drinking lots of water. I said “Don’t worry we can check the camera”. She was walking around the room, fanning herself and drinking water.’
The court was told the CCTV wasn’t working that day and when she saw it a week later, the view of Lecka and the child was blocked by a bookcase.
The staff member told the court: ‘The managers told me they told the local authority but I don’t know if they did. I don’t think the nursery took action.
‘After a week, Roksana was back at the nursery. They were not happy with me using the word pinching,’ she said. ‘They said I used the wrong word, pinching. I felt they did not deal with the situation right.’
The staff member reported Roksana Lecka to the police when she found about the other allegations she was facing at her new job at Riverside Nursery, which she joined in January 2024.
Summing up on Wednesday, the judge reminded jurors of the alleged child cruelty against the 17 children Roksana Lecka has denied wilfully harming.
Jurors heard from former colleagues of Roksana Lecka as well as from Dr Stephen Rose, a consultant paediatrician whom was the crown’s expert witness.
He had studied the CCTV clips and photographs taken by parents on both days where there is footage and days where there is not.
When asked for his expert opinion on a child who Roksana Lecka allegedly pulled out a crib and pinched and grabbed him, Dr Rose said the ‘purple discolouration would be consistent with a pinch mark.’
He said: ‘It would be difficult to think of a different mechanism. In order to cause bruising there must be damage, rupture to the capillaries, there must be force, the force would be provided by fingers in a pinch.
Dr Rose said it was a ‘non accidental injury’ and that a bruise caused by pinching a toddler would be ‘painful because significant force is required to rupture capillaries.’
Ms Ayling said: ‘We suggest on any occasion you find there is bruising that evidence applies. Significant force is required to rupture capillaries and it is that rupture that caused the bruise.
She added: ‘Given the fact the defendant had to be using significant force to cause bruising where she did, that she would have seen the children’s obvious distress when she assaulted them or ill treated them, yet carried on, it would be obvious that unnecessary suffering was likely to result each and every time she acted in same way.
‘Or she may not have cared either way whether it resulted in suffering.’
The defence said there were no safeguarding concerns about Ms Roksana Lecka before June 28.
The head teacher at Riverside told the court how she brought Roksana Lecka pink roses to say how well she was doing in late May or early June.
But the prosecution say the ‘punching’ incident on June 28, plus the ‘bad treatment’ of other children that day, ‘gave staff grave cause for concern’.
The head teacher reported the matter to the local authority, and the police attended on July 3 and began trawling through the CCTV.
In closing arguments, Ms Piercy said there were 400 hours of CCTV which a ‘small army of officers painstakingly reviewed from every angle.’
‘Every step she took, every child she picked up, every nappy she changed’, she added.
Ms Piercy added: ‘In our society, there is particular venom reserved to those who anyway mistreat the youngest and most vulnerable of our community.’ [WHAT UTTER CRAP]
‘Roksana has pleaded guilty to a number of offences which fall into that’, she said, adding jurors ‘will not like what she admitted to doing’ and that it will have ‘discoloured’ her character.
‘You are not here to like Roksana Lecka, you are here to judge her fairly on the evidence and in accordance with your oaths,’ she said.
Jurors were told most of the alleged incidents took place in the ‘baby room’ at Riverside Nursery, while some occurred in the ‘baby sleep room’ where infants lie in cots.
The nursery follows the Montessori method of teaching, involving children’s ‘natural interests’ instead of formal practices.
The trial continues.
UPDATE 17.06.25
A 22-year-old nursery worker has been convicted of abusing 21 babies, including kicking one little boy in the face and stepping on his shoulder.
Roksana Lecka, from Hounslow, west London, admitted seven counts of cruelty to a person under the age of 16 and was found guilty of another 14 by a jury at Kingston Crown Court, the Metropolitan Police said.
Lecka will be sentenced at Kingston Crown Court on 26 September.
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