It was a place where parents entrusted the lives of their precious children to the staff, to keep them safe, to care for them, to look after them.
But on May 9, 2022, the Tiny Toes nursery in the leafy suburb of Cheadle Hulme, with portraits of happy, smiling little ones plastered outside, became the scene of an unthinkable tragedy.
Parents who paid hundreds of pounds a week in school fees now know that the nursery's cheerful image was a 'façade'. In reality, this was a place where a number of babies had been threatened, abused and endangered.
The first sign that something was seriously wrong came during an afternoon phone call. John Meehan was on his way to school when he got the worst possible news. He was told that his baby daughter Genevieve had been found unconscious and blue - and that an ambulance was on its way to the nursery.
READ MORE "It could have been our son who died... I feel guilty that I feel lucky it didn't happen"Now, nearly two and a half years later, the full story of what happened at Tiny Toes can be told. After a series of court hearings, the most recent of which concluded this week, two workers - a childcare worker and the center's former assistant manager - are in jail for their treatment of the innocent babies who depended on them.
But those sentences won't bring back nine-month-old Genevieve Zofia Meehan, who died of asphyxiation and "patho-physiological stress" inflicted by deputy manager Kate Roughley, who was locked up in May. And they won't erase the trauma endured by her parents, or the parents of four other children who were subjected to "rough and aggressive" treatment and placed in "dangerous" sleeping positions by childcare worker Rebecca Gregory, who was locked up this week.
The four children who survived the neglect they were subjected to at Tiny Toes were abused on April 26, 2022 - about two weeks before Genevieve died. But it wasn't until police investigated the death of little "Gigi" that they discovered the other crimes - and revealed what really happened behind closed doors.
Kate Roughley, in her role as 'nursery leader', had swaddled Genevieve before placing her face down on a beanbag, strapping her in with a harness and leaving her alone for an hour and a half. She was sentenced to 14 years in prison in May this year for the manslaughter of Genevieve by beating.
The subsequent investigation and review of CCTV footage led officers to the door of childcare worker Rebecca Gregory, who also worked in the nursery.
Her job was to "care for the youngest and most vulnerable children in the nursery", a hearing at Minshull Street Crown Court heard on Monday.
Yet one day in April 2022, she swaddled four young children, all between the ages of nine and 12 months. One child was lying face down with a pacifier in his mouth. She then covered his face with a blanket and threatened to "kick" another child as he screamed.
According to the Public Prosecution Service in the case, she 'abused' four babies, three boys and one girl. CCTV footage shows her being 'rough and aggressive' and putting the babies in 'dangerous' sleeping positions.
Swaddling babies and placing them face down, covering their faces with a blanket, was described in court as "dangerous" and can lead to "an increased risk of suffocation, overheating and sudden infant death syndrome."
The mother of a baby boy who was told to "shut up" by Gregory before his head hit the floor as he was "thrown" onto a blanket to be swaddled - and then cursed at before falling on his face - said in a victim impact statement she "couldn't believe" what was happening at the day centre.
Prosecutor Mr Tom Challinor said: "She [his mum] said it has affected the family emotionally and caused distress that she has to pick up her son from daycare.
"She felt like the nursery was a cover-up. She couldn't believe this was happening. She felt guilty because she felt lucky it wasn't her son who died - but she realises it could have happened."
Gregory also "threatened to knock out" another little girl, whom she had swaddled and placed face down on a mat, with her head covered by a blanket. She swaddled another and placed him in the same position, face down, with a pacifier in his mouth.
On November 14, 2023, Gregory was arrested at her home. When presented with the evidence during her interrogation, she admitted to abusing the children and claimed the daycare was understaffed.
Defending her, Mrs Milena Bennett said Gregory's behaviour was "out of character" and claimed the nursery worker had complained about staffing levels but had been "rejected".
Gregory pleaded guilty to four counts of malicious abuse, maltreatment, neglect, abandonment or exposure of a child in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering and was sentenced to three years in prison.
Judge Tina Landale told her: "It is clear that you did not care for these babies. You displayed persistent behaviour when you did not believe you were being observed. These babies were particularly vulnerable because they were unable to express their distress."
The same claims of understaffing were made by Mrs. Roughley after Genevieve's death. During Roughley's trial, Megan Goldsby, an early years practitioner, was asked by prosecutors to summarize her views on the operation of the facility.
"Not great," she told the judges. "It was very badly organized. We had too many children."
The jurors also heard evidence from Catherine Knowles, an independent children's social work adviser, who said the floor space available was "not adequate", adding: "The whole layout of this nursery was not conducive to a nurturing, caring or learning environment. There was generally no structured layout for play activities."
Roughley gave evidence at her trial, saying she had complained about the "huge number of children" but was not listened to.
National guidelines state that in England there should be at least one staff member for every three children under two in nurseries. At Tiny Toes, the numbers far exceeded those levels. On the day Genevieve died, Roughley was one of two staff members caring for 11 babies.
Tiny Toes Nursery had its licence to operate revoked by Ofsted the day after Genevieve died. Four months later, an inspection found it did not meet legal requirements and the nursery's owners surrendered its licence shortly afterwards. Another nursery now operates on the former Tiny Toes site.
An Ofsted report on Tiny Toes from October 2022 states: "On 10 May 2022, the care provider notified us that a baby became unconscious in the nursery and died in hospital.
"We suspended the provider's registration on May 10, 2022 because we believe children are at risk of harm. Suspension gives the provider time to take steps to reduce or eliminate the risk of harm to children.
"We carried out monitoring visits on 2, 5 and 28 September 2022. We found that the provider did not meet a number of requirements. On 27 September 2022, the provider appealed the decision to suspend its registration. Before the appeal was lodged, the provider had cancelled its registration and is no longer registered with Ofsted."
This year the Manchester Evening News spoke to a number of parents of children who attended Tiny Toes.
One said of their child: "We dropped him off and he screamed all the time. We thought it was separation anxiety and him being around new people because he was a lockdown baby. There were always lines of parents coming to pick up their children, 20 to 30 deep.
The father added that every time they picked up his son, "he would cry."
Another parent said: "My son was not dealt with. He always gets angry when we try to talk to him about it. He was left to his own devices."
Meanwhile, a third said his son was a peer of Genevieve's: "He wasn't there that morning when that happened, but he was there on other days."
The father said that after Covid, parents were told to drop their children off at reception and could not go to the nursery itself to pick them up.
"We couldn't see what was going on in there," he added. "Now we know."
