Outraged parents are condemning the decision to deport a nursery worker to Poland after she served only a small fraction of her eight-year sentence for abusing babies.
Roksana Lecka, aged 23, engaged in a campaign of “sadistic abuse,” where she physically assaulted 21 infants, some as young as ten months old, across two nurseries in London.
Despite her admission to seven counts of child cruelty and her denial of 17 additional charges, a jury found her guilty on 14 counts during her six-month stint at Twickenham Green Montessori.
In September 2025, Lecka was sentenced to eight years in prison but was deported in February after serving just 14 months, including time spent on remand, under the government’s Early-Removal Scheme.
Back in Poland, she may not face further legal action, although the Ministry of Justice has confirmed she is “banned for life from returning to the UK.”
The parents of the affected children have expressed their deep frustration, labeling her deportation as “really hard to swallow,” and are advocating for stricter policies to prevent early release for child abusers.
The Labour government introduced the scheme in 2024 after prisons across the United Kingdom became severely overcrowded.
The father of a boy physically abused by the nursery worker told the BBC: ‘We felt it undermined all that time and emotion that had gone into the trial.
Roksana Lecka, 23, carried out a campaign of ‘sadistic abuse’ in which she punched, kicked and smacked 21 babies as young as ten-months-old at two London nurseries
However the nursery worker was deported back to Poland in February after just serving 14 months behind bars – and may face no further concequences in eastern Europe
‘Preparing our witness statements and our victim impact statements, going through the trauma of the whole investigation and trial, to get a sentence brought a sense of closure that we could all move on from it.
‘But then for that sentence to not be served, it was a bit of a hollow feeling’.
The parent also accused the government of focusing ‘too much on cost savings, rather than upholding the principles of the system’.
One mother of a son Lecka left with heavy bruises said she was ‘utterly dumfounded’ to hear of the criminal’s deportation, revealing that her child still suffers with trauma.
The parents were given less than a week’s notice about the Polish woman’s deportation in February – in a decision Twickenham MP Munira Wilson blasted as ‘outrageous’.
Whether Lecka faces further concequences back in Poland will be determined by the country’s officials.
During her trial, the 23-year-old tried to justify her behaviour by claiming she was sleep deprived from smoking cannabis all night with her boyfriend.
She told the court: ‘I can’t remember the things I was doing because I was smoking cannabis that was affecting my memory.’
It was found that Lecka also abused infants at a second nursery, but her acts were only found when she was sent home for pinching multiple children.
Devastated parents began reporting unexplained injuries on their children in March 2024.
However managers at the Twickenham nursery did not discover Lecka was the culprit, and she continued to care for toddlers younger than two until she was arrested on June 28, 2024.
CCTV footage shown in court showed Lecka vaping in a baby sleeping room, where there was at least one child present.
Lecka was caught vaping just inches away from sleeping children in CCTV footage shown in court
She carried out much of her abuse between October 2023 and June 2024 at Twickenham Green Montessori
Meanwhile, shocking police interview footage showed how the 23-year-old seemed ‘bored’ and showed no emotion as the gravity of her criminality was laid bare.
One clip showed Lecka appearing to play with her hair while she was asked about a baby ‘on a mattress, he seems to be crying’.
When Lecka did not respond, a female officer paused to say: ‘Sorry am I boring you?’
Additional footage showed the 23-year-old repeatedly responding ‘no comment’ to every question lodged by police.
The vicious nursery worker also showed little to no emotion when pictures of the injuries she caused children in her care were shown to her.
There were no issues regarding safeguarding when Lecka was hired, the court was told.
Parents of the victims spoke previously of their ‘overwhelming guilt’ at sending their infants to the Riverside Nursery in Twickenham, southwest London.
One father said his wife believed Lecka was capable of killing a child, a statement which appeared to crack the once emotionless defendant.
‘As someone who works in safeguarding children, I find the fact that Roksana slipped through the net and was allowed to work with children absolutely criminal,’ a father said.
Lecka appeared calm when she was informed by police that she was to be arrested over the attacks
‘My wife believes that if she had not been caught she could have gone on to seriously injure or even kill by dropping babies into cots on their heads and kicking them.’
Sentencing, Judge Sarah Plaschkes KC told Lecka in September she should be barred from ever working with children or vulnerable people again.
She said: ‘You committed multiple acts of gratuitous violence.
‘You pinched, slapped, punched, smacked and kicked them. You pulled their ears, hair and their toes. You toppled children headfirst into cots. You caused bruising and lingering red marks.
‘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.’
The Ministry of Justice was approached for comment.
