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

Paedophile nursery worker could have been stopped sooner, says former colleague Just now Share Save Add as preferred on Google Eleanor Layhe , Hayley Hassall and Jenny Parks , BBC Local Investigations "I was told I was imagining it" - Bessie Martin says her concerns about Nathan Bennett were ignored Warning: 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 emerged. 'Constantly complaining' Bessie filed a whistleblowing report to senior management Bessie Martin says she became suspicious of Bennett's behaviour when she saw him holding on to children for too long. "I would see a child try to wriggle away or stand up and walk off, but he'd say, 'sit here and we're going to read a book'." She was "constantly complaining" about him for months, she says, and it was only after she filed a whistleblowing report to the chain's senior management that he was suspended. However, Bennett was allowed to return to work shortly afterwards. Two weeks later, a review of CCTV showed him putting his hands down a boy's trousers. The nursery suspended Bennett again and informed the council's Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO). Police were alerted the following day and he was arrested. We have also heard from parents who reported Bennett's behaviour to nursery management in the months before his arrest. "Overly physical" with children, is how one mother described him. Some of these con