Parents from the Little Ted’s Day Nursery in Plymouth, Devon, wept openly in the public gallery as Mr Justice Royce, sitting at Bristol Crown Court, made what appeared to be a heartfelt appeal to the sullen, obese figure sat 15 yards away in the dock.
George, 39, herself the mother of two teenage daughters, has consistently refused to name which of the 30 infants on a police shortlist she actually attacked.
But she may now change her mind following the judge’s intervention. He told George’s barrister, Nick Gerasimidis: “There are lots of parents whose children attended Little Ted’s who don’t know whether their child has been abused or not.
“Your client must know, it seems to me, who she has abused and who she has abused and who she has not," he said.
“If I were a parent I would want to know. Would it not at least be decent for her to indicate who she has abused and who she has not.”
Mr Gerasimidis said he could say nothing more on the matter at present. However, he added: “I am sure Vanessa George has heard your Lordship’s remarks.”
Some of the parents were so affected by the detail revealed in the charges that they broke into sobs. One mother rested her head on the shoulder of another, occasionally shaking her head in apparent disbelief. A father abruptly left his seat and fled the courtroom before all the charges had been read out.
George, of Plymouth, Devon, co-defendant Colin Blanchard, from Smallbridge, near Rochdale, Greater Manchester, and Angela Allen, from Bulwell, Nottingham, faced a total of 37 charges, including making and distributing indecent images of children.
George admitted seven sexual assaults and six counts of distributing and making indecent pictures of children. She denied one sex assault, which was ordered by the judge to lie on file.
Blanchard, 38, pleaded guilty to 17 child pornography counts and two sexual assaults on children. He also admitted a further charge of possessing extreme pornography.
Allen, 39, pleaded guilty to four child sex assaults and one count of distributing an indecent image.
Mr Justice Royce warned all three defendants that a substantial prison term was “inevitable” for each of them. The maximum sentence is life imprisonment.
George, who was wearing a voluminous black T shirt and skirt, had shuffled slowly into the courtroom, a sullen expression on her face.
As she made her way to her seat she appeared determined to avoid making eye contact with the distraught parents of her victims who sitting a few yards away in the public gallery.
A startling feature of the case is that until George’s arrival in the dock she had never met her co-defendants. Instead, the trio had engaged in depraved “cyber-sex relationships” with each other on the internet.
Blanchard had been the first of the trio to be arrested, and from him the trail moved swiftly to Plymouth. George was arrested at her home before she could start another day’s work at Little Ted’s. The nursery, which catered for up to 60 children, has since closed.
It has emerged that George used the internet, MSN and her secret paedophile web address, Daddys_princess69@hotmail.com, to swap her collection of paedophile images.
She used what she termed her “fun phone” to take 150 obscene images of infants in her care.
As George and her accomplices awaited sentencing next month, it emerged that the nursery assistant had had worked in childcare for more than a decade before she began to feed her paedophile fantasies while working at Little Ted’s.
She had even managed to hold down a job as a classroom assistant elsewhere in Plymouth without anyone suspecting she was a paedophile.
Police have confirmed that education officials had no suspicions about George’s behaviour and she had passed the routine CRB check required of adults working with children.
George, whose husband, Andrew, 41, and the couple’s children have now disowned her, is believed to have taken a large number of her photographs in the United Church Hall opposite Little Ted’s.
She thought her crimes would never be exposed because she took care to photograph only the torsos of the infants she was supposed to be caring for.
But detectives spotted part of the Little Ted’s logo on an indecent photograph she had sent to Blanchard.
Later, as they interrogated the hard drive of her own computer, they found the full logo on an entirely innocent photograph she had taken of a colleague at the nursery.
Detectives doubt that unless George heeds the judge’s plea they will never identify George’s young victims, despite four months’ work in analysing the full catalogue of abuse found on her “fun phone” and computer.
The closest they have come so far has been to narrow the number of possible victims down to 30 babies and toddlers, mostly girls, aged between 12 and 18 months. Many of George’s victims were photographed as they lay on changing mats. Some were penetrated either with a sex toy or a toothbrush.
The paedophile had deliberately chosen younger victims, knowing they would be unable to report her.
Police sought the advice of a specially-formed ethics committee to prevent them unintentionally causing further distress to possible victims or their parents.
Detectives remain astonished that three paedophiles from disparate parts of the country could meet “at random” on the internet and then form so sinister an alliance.
They were caught after one of Blanchard’s business partners logged onto his office computer while he was on a trip to Abu Dhabi. He was so appalled by the images he saw that he immediately called in police.
Blanchard, a one-time college lecturer who lived a seemingly middle-class life in Littleborough, near Rochdale, Greater Manchester, was arrested as he flew back into Manchester Airport.
The trail then moved on to Vanessa George in Plymouth and a few days later to Angela Allen in Nottingham.
A British nursery worker, Vanessa George, and two other people, Angela Allen and Colin Blanchard, have been convicted, in Bristol Crown Court, of sexually abusing minors and sharing the pictures online.

Each person recorded images on their mobile phones, and shared them with each of the other two via email and text. Detective Superintendent Adrian Pearson of Nottinghamshire Police called this behaviour "horrific and devilish", saying, "Those three individuals have shared quite willingly and freely images, texts, fantasies of the most serious level you could imagine."

The three people, who met on social networking website Facebook, had never seen each other in real life until they attended court. Allen wept in the dock, while co-accused George hung her head. Blanchard—who has been on the Sex Offenders Register for five years previously—however, showed no reaction.

Vanessa George pleaded guilty to thirteen charges, including one count of sexual assault. Allen admitted four counts of sexual assault and one of distributing inappropriate images, and Blanchard nineteen charges, including seventeen of sexual assault, and a further charge of possessing    extreme pornography. George refuses to identify which of the children on the police's thirty-strong shortlist she attacked. The three have yet to be sentenced, and the crime carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

George, aged 39, a mother of two teenage daughters from Plymouth, Devon, had worked for Little Ted's Nursery for three years, and in the childcare industry for 10 years. Blanchard, 38, from Smallbridge, Greater Manchester was an IT technician, and had a rocky relationship with his wife of 16 years. Allen, 39, lived in Nottingham, and says she has had an online relationship with Blanchard.