Nursery employee sentenced to decades in jail for raping 5 ‘very young’ children

BRISTOL, England (WKRC) — A nursery employee was sentenced to 30 years in prison for raping five “very young” children in his care, with his crimes caught on the daycare’s surveillance cameras, according to authorities.

In a press release from Avon and Somerset Police, 30-year-old Nathan Bennett was arrested on February 26, 2025 after staff of the daycare he worked at echoed concerns raised by parents about Bennett’s behavior toward their children.

Nathan Bennett (Photo: Avon and Somerset Police)

Bennett’s manager reviewed the building’s surveillance cameras and found evidence of the employee raping at least five “very young” victims.

“Specialist child protection officers reviewed hundreds of hours of footage from 18 nursery CCTV cameras, identifying multiple offences and five child victims,” the release read. “The team then had to visit the children’s families and break the awful news of what had been happening.”

Although Bennett said “that he is sorry for the harm he understands he caused” during trial, Judge William Hart described the man as a “dangerous pedophile” and that the families will never forget the “torment” he subjected their children to.

“Watching as we did in this trial, the CCTV footage of the little children at the nursery running around and playing brings a smile to any decent person,” he said during Bennett’s sentencing. “But the children we saw were not secure, they were at risk because unknown to staff and parents that you were lurking and ready to abuse them and to pollute their innocence with your vile desires.”

Bennett was charged with two counts of sexual assault by penetration, two counts of rape of a child under 13, four counts of sexual assault of a child under 13, eight counts of sexual assault of a child aged under 13, four counts of causing a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, and one counts of engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child. Bennett was sentenced to 30 years in prison and was subject of an “indefinite sexual harm prevention order.”

“Nathan Bennett is a predatory pedophile who groomed children in order to commit vile sexual crimes on very young victims,” said investigating officer DC Bethany Cook. “He has manipulated his way into a position of trust which has given him access to victims who are just toddlers.”

“He exploited his position – and the trust that came with it – to repeatedly abuse young children, while grooming them to believe that his sickening behavior was normal,” said Gemma Kneebone of the Crown Prosecution Service’s South West Rape and Serious Sexual Offences Unit. “To discover that a person to whom you had entrusted your child’s care could betray that trust in such a way is unimaginable, and our thoughts remain with all of those affected by these terrible crimes.”