Thirteen directors and staff at two care homes have been convicted of the “organised and systematic” abuse of vulnerable adults with learning disabilities.
Residents of the homes were routinely locked in cold, damp rooms without access to food or water as punishment for misbehaving.
Staff used the threat of isolating residents in a so-called quiet room as a way to control them, Bristol crown court was told.
Some of the most difficult residents had a range of physical and mental problems and would be locked up for hours, often without access to a toilet.
A total of 24 defendants were prosecuted for the abuse of residents at the Veilstone care home in Bideford, and Gatooma in Holsworthy, both in Devon, in 2010 and 2011. Thirteen were convicted. It is thought to be the first time that care home directors have been prosecuted alongside staff.
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The trials, which could not be reported until the last one had finished, came to an end yesterday when the prosecution offered no evidence against the last two defendants.
Those convicted included Jolyon Marshall, 42, a co-director, his wife, Rachel, 32, and several managers. Paul Hewitt, 71, the founder of the Atlas Project Team, was convicted of a health and safety offence.
Andrew Langdon, QC, for the prosecution, said staff tried to control residents’ behaviour as though they were animals.
He said: “You can call it the Atlas culture. The prosecution say that each of them was effectively imprisoned in that room against their will. It was not a one-off but organised and systemic abuse of people with learning disabilities — vulnerable members of society who were residents in homes that were meant to care for them.”
The rooms used for the isolation punishment were known as the garden room and the quiet room.
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Mr Langdon said: “Whatever the original purpose, these two rooms were used by staff to control — perhaps to even punish — residents at a time that was not only unacceptable by professional standards of care but was also quite unnecessarily cruel.”
Hewitt, a psychiatric nurse and behavioural therapist, ran seven care homes in Devon and Berkshire. He sold Atlas for £3 million to his two sons and other directors in a management buyout in 2006 but continued to describe himself as the managing director.
The “balloon went up” when a former resident made a complaint to the Care Quality Commission in July 2011. The CQC closed the two homes after unannounced inspections the following October and the police were called in. Atlas has since gone into administration.
Mr Langton added: “It was an insular world and it led to a culture of care that was in effect abusive. The residents were not inmates, they were residents and, whatever the challenges their behaviour created, each of them at all times should have been treated with respect.”
The residents were paying up to £4,000 a week for their care and the two homes together generated revenue of nearly £2 million a year.
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Judge William Hart said that Atlas had started off as a well-run organisation but then fell into “systematic neglect”. He added: “At some point the wrong turn was taken, which allowed the quiet room and garden rooms to be used. It became the norm, a habit.
“Rather than care in the community it became lack of care in the community and systematic neglect. The residents didn’t like it. The phrase that comes back to me, ‘If you kick off, you get the quiet room’.
“It was used as a form of punishment and they were distressed and in discomfort when left in the room. Eventually they complied, but that had no therapeutic value
“There were many that benefited from the Atlas regime but the way that the rooms became used was not beneficial. Those two rooms cast a dark shadow over people’s lives.”
Seven defendants were acquitted and prosecutors did not seek retrials against four others after the panel failed to reach verdicts.
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After the trial, Huw Rogers, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “The directors and managers at the Atlas care homes created a culture of abuse unlawfully detaining residents in very poor conditions for long periods of time. This case has been ground-breaking in that the directors and managers of the homes and not just the staff that implemented their policies have been held to account.
“The CPS has worked tirelessly throughout this complex case in partnership with the police to achieve a successful outcome and justice for the victims.
“I would like to thank all those who have supported the prosecution case and in particular the residents of the homes and their families.”
Detective Chief Inspector Sheon Sturland, from Devon and Cornwall police, said: “This case has been very complex. In many ways is the first of its kind in this country, dealing with not just those workers directly involved with victims, but all the way up to owners, directors and senior managers, who allowed a culture of abuse to exist.
“We welcome the outcome of the court process. It sends a very clear message that abuse of any kind against vulnerable people — whether as an individual or as a result of an institutionalised culture — will not be tolerated.”
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Behind the story
Residents lived in fear of being confined to the punishment rooms they described in court as “disgusting and cold” (Simon de Bruxelles writes).
The name “the quiet room” at Veilstone did not do justice to the horror. There was no door handle and the only way to get attention or be allowed out to use the toilet was to call for help. One former resident known as AC described it as “unspeakable”. He said “The quiet room was used a lot with me. If I did something that they didn’t like I was straight back in.
“It was a room that was disgusting and cold. It had a CCTV camera, a smoke detector and a punctured mattress — it was an airbed but it had a puncture in. It had lino on the floor. It was cold, damp. If you wanted to go to the toilet, there was no toilet in there. There was a window but it was locked. No curtains. They made the room as bad as possible and as uncomfortable as possible.”
He added: “I was kept in there overnight. I wasn’t able to get out. I tried to get out but they grabbed me and got me back in.” It was AC who made the complaint to the Care Quality Commission which ultimately led to the homes being shut down.
Atlas Project Team were supposed to be providing specialist care for adults with learning difficulties and were charging up to £4,000 a week for it. Mental health campaigners who sat through the trials said instead residents were held virtual prisoner.