ELM VIEW CARE HOME PAIR GUILTY OF NEGLECTING RESIDENTS
The former owner and manager of a Halifax nursing home are facing prison sentences on Monday after a jury yesterday found them guilty of neglecting vulnerable residents.Elm View owner Philip Bentley, from Wakefield, and its manager Faheza Simpson, from Holmfirth, showed no emotion as the jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts at the end of a complex trial lasting about seven weeks.
Simpson, 49, of Huddersfield Road, was convicted on four neglect charges relating to one male resident and three women while 65-year-old Bentley, of Woodthorpe Drive, Sandal, was found guilty on the three allegations relating to the women.
Prosecutor Nicholas Askins alleged that the home struggled to retain qualified nurses and did not have enough pressure-relieving mattresses.
“The prosecution case, based on the evidence of the home’s own staff, is that in the year preceding the intervention of the police the standard of pressure sore care in Elm View declined markedly,” said Mr Askins.
“This poor practice was not a latent feature of life in the home, but was there to be seen.
The defendants knew of the bad practice.” Mr Askins said Simpson was described by staff as “short-tempered” and having an aggressive personality.
“At times her behaviour towards those working under her supervision could properly be characterised as bullying,” said Mr Askins.
Bentley had bought Elm View with his late wife in November 1990 and Mr Askins said the residents at the home required either full nursing care or were residents with a high level of dependency.
The jury heard that the victims of the neglect were 68-year-old Alzheimer’s sufferer Ian Ball, 85-year-old stroke victim Phyllis Hagreen, 81-year-old Mildred Threadgold, who had Alzheimer’s and could not walk or speak, and 78-year-old dementia sufferer Margaret Patterson who was completely immobile.
Mr Askins described the standard of pressure sore care at the home as “lamentable” and Judge Jonathan Rose said the victims were among the most vulnerable in the community.
“These are extremely serious offences,” he told Bentley and Simpson.
“Offences committed against possibly the most vulnerable part of the community apart from children and, in some ways, as vulnerable as children.
People who could not speak.
People who could not say when they were not being treated properly and the consequences for each of the victims, for that is what they were, have been really quite dreadful.” Judge Rose adjourned the sentence hearing until Monday because Bentley’s barrister was unwell today, but he told both defendants that despite their previous good characters he had prison sentences in mind.
“The fact that I am adjourning sentence and the fact that I am granting you bail is no indication of the eventual outcome,” he said.
“All options are open and those options include immediate imprisonment.” The court heard that the neglect charges carry a maximum prison term of five years.
