After apparently being subjected to a “brutal regime” of force-feeding and physical restraint, a 12-year-old girl was allegedly left wheelchair-bound and incontinent within days of being admitted to a scandal-hit mental health unit.
The girl, who had a brain disorder, had walked into Huntercombe Hospital in Maidenhead after being admitted following acts of self-harm. But, shortly after admission, her parents say she was wheeled into the visiting room to see them with “significant, fresh wounds to the tops of her feet from restraint”.
The child, who remained in a wheelchair for the majority of her nearly two-year detention, alleges she had begged her parents to take her home – simply texting them the word “help”.
Hers is just one of the dozens of allegations in new legal claims made on behalf of vulnerable children sent by the NHS to four Huntercombe Group hospitals, where patients say they were strip-searched, sexually and racially abused by staff and over-medicated into a “comatose” state.
The allegations are set out in thousands of pages of documents filed on behalf of 53 former patients. Other claims include:
- Young girls with a history of sexual abuse who say they were restrained by male staff, forced to be in their underwear, and use the toilet or shower in front of male staff
- One patient who alleged they were groped by a male worker while restrained
- A black child who says staff used racial slurs and made monkey noises at them
- Claims that hospital walls were covered in blood stains, dried vomit and rotten food
- Families who allege they were barred from seeing their children and prevented from being involved in their care
Children’s commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza told The Independent the allegations were “shocking” and “allege some of the most horrifying examples of abuse over two decades of scores of children in the care of the Huntercombe Group hospitals”.
She added: “The allegations by former patients are utterly devastating, and every action must be taken to thoroughly investigate what happened in these hospitals, which should have been places where children received care and comfort.”
The patients and families, who came forward to law firm Hutcheon Law following a series of investigations by The Independent and Sky News into Huntercombe Group hospitals in 2023, are now bringing claims for compensation against 35 psychiatrists who worked at the hospitals.
None of the defendants has admitted liability or been found liable for the claims, which can now progress in the civil courts after approval from a judge at a preliminary hearing. The next step in these cases is for the claims to be officially issued to the defendants.
At least three former patients listed in the claims have taken their own lives in the past two years, with their families alleging their children suffered post-traumatic stress disorder following their hospital stays.
They include Ruth Szymankiewicz, 14, who took her own life at Huntercombe Hospital, Maidenhead, later renamed Taplow Manor, following a litany of failings that led an inquest jury to conclude that her death amounted to an unlawful killing.
The children’s commissioner has been calling for significant changes to the Mental Health Act, following Ruth’s death, including better protections for children against inappropriate hospital placements and greater accountability for those in charge of care decisions.
‘Brutal regime’
Court documents detailing the claims, released to The Independent, cover allegations spanning two decades at Huntercombe hospitals and allege that children were subject to inhumane, degrading and abusive treatment in units described as prison-like environments.
Details of the claims set out to the court include the care of a teenager sexual abuse victim, who says she was “strip-searched” on the day she was admitted to the Maidenhead hospital in 2020 and restrained by male staff and had “all of her clothes cut off her”.
She alleges that she then had stitches from a previous wound reopened to check she hadn’t hidden any items inside.
In the case of the 12-year-old who claims she was left wheelchair-bound, it’s alleged she was subjected to a “brutal regime in which her fundamental rights and freedoms were so severely curtailed as to be practically meaningless”.
That included “excessive and unjustified” forced feeding, injection medication and physical restraint for hours by multiple staff at a time, leaving her looking “blank-eyed and frail”.
She claims she was subjected to “invasive” observations, including being watched while using the toilet, bathing and in bed and was “deprived of adequate education”.
Her parents complained to the local NHS trust, Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust, claiming staff had used excessive restraints, including one incident where staff allegedly put their daughter into a “cage” of mats that “carried a stench of urine”, leaving her terrified.
But the parents claim “the views of her parents were ignored and/or belittled”.
‘Living on a knife-edge’
Another patient, Alice Sweating, who has autism and was diagnosed with depression and an eating disorder, was admitted to the Maidenhead hospital on 2 July 2020, when she was 16 years old, after she began self-harming.
During her 14-month stay, she says she was physically restrained more than 150 times, during which she was “thrown to the floor and dragged”, and was subject to “degrading” strip-searches on multiple occasions, according to her claim documents.
Ms Sweating, now aged 21, claims staff members’ actions were “coercive”, “abusive” and says they used force feeding and restraint as the first approach rather than as a last resort.
Alice’s mother, Lauren Copp, told The Independent that, five years on, her daughter is still not able to access therapy.
“She doesn’t always get the right care and support she needs to keep it safe. So every day we live on a knife-edge. Every day we’re thankful she’s still here with us, and we just pray that she’ll still be here tomorrow, but that’s how I live, because we don’t know what tomorrow will bring.”
Tania Vine, the oldest claimant, was admitted to the Maidenhead hospital in 2003 at 14 years old. She was only meant to be there for several weeks, but due to the deterioration in her mental health, she stayed for four years.
Following the approval for court claims to go ahead, one mother, whose daughter has been granted anonymity, said: “It has taken years to reach this point of the legal process, and now she is finally a step closer to achieving some kind of justice, not just for her, but for all those who suffered in the same way. Finally, there is some hope.”
To allow the claims to go ahead, lawyers for the claimants had to prove the claims met the threshold set under section 139 of the Mental Health Act, which is designed to protect clinicians from legal claims made in bad faith by those detained. The judge agreed that the threshold was met, and so the negligence claims can go ahead.
Following The Independent’s exposes, Active Care Group, which acquired the former Huntercombe Services in December 2021, closed Taplow Manor in 2023. However, Ivetsey Bank in Stafford, where at least five of the patients were treated, remains open, and the NHS still refers patients there.
Three of the five Huntercombe hospitals have now closed – one after a nurse was convicted of grooming and sexually assaulting a patient. The former nurse is not involved in the latest legal action.
Responding to the latest claims, Active Care Group said: “We are not able to comment on historic allegations relating to care provided under previous ownership, nor on unproven allegations that remain subject to ongoing court proceedings.
“What we can emphasise is that patients’ wellbeing is at the heart of everything we do. We are proud to deliver safe, therapeutically led care across all our services, reflected in our industry-leading performance, with 94 per cent of our services rated ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ by the Care Quality Commission.”
Elli Investments Group, which previously owned the Huntercombe Group, said: “We regret that these hospitals and specialist care services, which were owned and independently managed by The Huntercombe Group, failed to meet the expected standards for high-quality care.”