Mental health charity fined £40,000 over teenager’s death in West London care home

A 12 months after she was admitted, Sophie Bennett, 19, was discovered hanged in a residential care home in Richmond, West London, in May 2016.

The teenager from Tooting, who had bipolar, atypical autism and social anxiousness – succumbed to her accidents two days later in Kingston Hospital.

The Richmond Psychosocial Foundation International (RPFI), the charity which ran the ability, has been fined £40,000 over a failure to supply protected care and therapy below the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Peggy Jhugroo, 57, was employed by RPFI as a co-ordinator and was additionally handed a £3,000 high-quality.

Sentencing at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court on Friday afternoon (March 5), District Judge Deborah Wright stated: “The RPFI fell far wanting the suitable normal in that it did not heed warnings and issues raised by staff.

The sentencing came about at Uxbridge Magistrates Court

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“They recruited inexperienced workers, failed to make sure correct coaching was given to newly appointed workers and did not recognise the wants of Sophie.”

Ms Wright went on to say there was a “severe and systemic failure throughout the organisation to recognise the danger to health and security”, which means its culpability stage was “excessive”.

She continued: “Her (Sophie’s) vulnerability was self-evident…anybody studying her logs ought to have been conscious the dangers had been vital.

“The danger to her was, in all circumstances, a excessive chance of death.”

Ms Wright stated that Jhugroo “willingly did the RPFI’s bidding” and was “wilfully blind to the danger of offending” regardless of Ms Bennett’s vulnerability.

She added: “The high-quality I give should consider the seriousness of the offence.”

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Craig Rush, prosecuting, advised the court docket that “cost-cutting on the expense of security” with the underlying motive behind elimination of workers and remedy being “elevated profitability”.

On April 28, 2016, two care staff discovered a number of objects in Ms Bennett’s room “that she might have used to self-harm”.

They additionally observed “a burn-like mark” on the again of her neck, which “ought to have given rise to very real, very severe issues concerning the dangers of her harming herself”, the court docket heard.

However, the extent of danger of Ms Bennett harming herself was solely put to 3 out of 10 following the invention, as workers had been “not certified and untrained”.

Mr Rush went on to say the RPFI “fell far wanting the suitable normal” as a result of it “ignored issues raised by a number of staff relating to the danger proposed concerning the residents”.

Paul Spencer, representing the RPFI, stated: “There have been very vital, long-lasting lesson studying from the very tragic death of Sophie Bennett.”

He accepted that workers had been recruited with out “an acceptable skillset” however denied that such steps had been “knowingly taken”.

The RPFI, which not oversees the care facility, accepted its excessive culpability in the incident the court docket heard.

The court docket additionally heard that Jhugroo was the “fallacious particular person for the job” resulting from her youth employee background.

Jhugroo remained in her place till 2017.

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