Britain’s most notorious female paedophile has been freed from jail, it has been reported.
Former nursery worker Vanessa George, 49, was locked up for a minimum of seven years in 2009 for a series of sex crimes against small children. She had taken photographs on her phone of her abusing toddlers at Little Ted’s Nursery in Plymouth.
George has been eligible for release since December 15, 2016, but campaigners had called for her to be kept behind bars. She was freed on Wednesday morning, according to the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme.
After approving her release, having deemed that she no longer poses a “significant risk to the public”, the Parole Board ordered that George will be subjected to “strict licence conditions” and an “unusually large exclusion zone”, including being banned from Devon and Cornwall.
In an open letter to the people of Plymouth, chief probation officer Sonia Crozier said: “I share the disgust at the crimes committed by Vanessa George, and I understand why the prospect of her release is so worrying to so many people, particularly in Plymouth where memories of her abuse are still vivid and frightening.
“The fact she so callously exploited a position of trust to commit these crimes makes them all the more horrifying.
“She will also never be allowed to work with children again and will be on the sex offenders’ register for the rest of her life.
“She is subject to a number of conditions, including not to have unsupervised contact with any children whatsoever.
“If she breaches any of these conditions or if her probation officer thinks there is an increasing chance she might re-offend - she can be immediately recalled to prison.”
During George’s 2009 sentencing, Justice Royce told her she had “plumbed new depths of depravity” by abusing those in her care.
The “shockwaves” of her maltreatment of babies and toddlers would be felt in every one of the country’s nursery schools, he added.
Although the self-styled “paedo whore mum” has named some victims, George was accused of deliberately hiding information that would properly pinpoint those in the pictures she took.
Child protection officers visited 180 children thought to have had contact with George, who admitted taking up to eight pictures a day while on duty.
Staff at Little Ted’s said they felt “betrayed” by George’s actions and one said that “a lifetime of childcare had been ruined by Vanessa’s actions”.