A TEENAGE nursery apprentice has been found guilty of abusing nine toddlers at the childcare facility in Torbay.

Jayden McCarthy, formerly of Kingsteignton, was convicted on all counts by the jury at Exeter Crown Court today (Friday) after the jury had been out considering their verdicts for more than four hours.

He was a 16-year-old apprentice at the nursery in July 2019 when a three-year-old girl went home and told her mother that he had made her take part in a sex act in a toilet area.

CCTV from the previous 10 days revealed he had carried out 13 less serious sexual assaults on seven girls and a boy.

A teenaged boy also came forward to police to disclose that McCarthy had raped him repeatedly when he was aged about eight.

Judge David Evans adjourned the case until July 14 for sentence and allowed McCarthy to remain on bail until that date.

He is currently in council care and under 24-hour supervision at an isolated location in Somerset and will remain there until sentence.

The judge ordered a psychiatric and pre-sentence reports to be prepared. He told McCarthy to expect a lengthy sentence of youth custody.

He told him: ‘You have been found guilty on the clearest possible evidence of grave sexual offences against young and very young children at a time when you were yourself a youth.

‘You face a substantial sentence of custodial detention. However, I cannot sentence you now. I need to give those affected to record the effect on the children in personal statements which will be before me when I sentence.

‘I also need to give the lawyers time to construct submissions about sentence, which they will put into writing.

‘Given your age, and the age you were at the time, and the seriousness of the offending and your lack of previous convictions, I am allowing time arrange a psychiatric assessment by someone with forensic experience and a full pre-sentence report to be prepared by the probation service.

‘That will address all relevant matters, including dangerousness.’

The judge told McCarthy he will have to sign on the sex offenders’ register immediately and will be prevented from working with children again by the Declaration and Barring Service.

Mr Nick Lewin, defending, said a psychiatric report was essential in this case because McCarthy had himself been the victim of sexual abuse when he was very young.

McCarthy, now aged 18, of South Devon, denied one count of rape and 13 of sexual assault at the nursery and was found guilty by unanimous verdict of all these offences.

He also denied two rapes in relation to the earlier assaults on the eight-year-old boy and was found guilty of these by majority verdict.

A massive police operation was launched on July 29, 2019, when the three-year-old girl told her mother that ‘Jayden had been naughty’ in a toilet at the nursery.

Officers studied 265 hours of CCTV footage which revealed the other offences, in which he put his hand up the skirts of girl or touched them while pretending to play or apply sun cream.

One clip showed him looking around furtively as he slid his hand inside a little girl’s clothing as she took a nap on a mattress on the floor with other children asleep all around her.

The CCTV footage also showed that he had been alone in the toilet area with the three-year-old for around nine minutes on the day he assaulted her.

Her dress had got drenched while she was in a wet pay area and he was ostensibly changing it for a dry one which she kept in her rucksack.

McCarthy was in care and living in a children’s home at the time while also working part time as a waiter at a pub in Kingsteignton.

He had been working at the nursery since March, having passed two interviews and been vetted. He had received training in safeguarding during his employment.

He denied all the offences and said there was an innocent explanation for all the clips.

The NSPCC praised the courage of the victims and their families.