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Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law Volume 36, 2014 - Issue 2
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Adult serious case reviews: lessons for housing providers

Imogen ParryLaw Department, Keele University, UKCorrespondence[email protected]
Pages 168-189 | Published online: 25 Mar 2014

References

Housing-related adult SCRs

Legislation and draft legislation

Brief narrative summaries of the subjects of the 21 housing-related adult SCRs

  • Bath and North East Somerset (BANES) (2013): PQ is a woman in her early 70s who has borderline learning disability and is in generally good health. She lives alone in a housing association flat. She was raped in April 2012 by a man shortly after his release from prison.
  • Buckinghamshire (2010): Mr B was a 62-year-old man, with a recent history of ill-health and alcoholism and living in sheltered housing. He died in January 2009 from possible neglect by care agencies.
  • Bury (2010): Adult A was a 41-year-old man with mild learning disabilities, living in council accommodation (Bury Council's ALMO) with support from Adult Care Services and an Anti-Social Behaviour caseworker. He was found dead in December 2009 due to multiple stab wounds.
  • Cornwall (1) (2009): JK was a frail, reclusive, self-neglecting 76-year-old woman who lived alone in rented housing association property and who was discovered dead at her home in November 2008.
  • Cornwall (2) (2007): Steven Hoskin was a 39-year-old man with learning disabilities, living in housing association general needs accommodation, who terminated support from Adult Social Care. He was tortured and murdered one year later, in July 2006, by teenagers who had for some time been exploiting him and using his house as a base for under-age drinking.
  • Coventry (2012): Mrs C was a frail woman in her mid 80s who lived in an Anchor Trust housing with care scheme. She died in early 2011 due to asphyxiation when her head became trapped between a bed grab handle and the side of her bed.
  • Dorset (2013): JT was a 69-year-old woman, in poor physical health who lived in housing association sheltered housing with her husband. She died in May 2012 as a result of a stroke following admission to a care home earlier that year. A referral into safeguarding was made on her admission to the care home due to concerns relating to the care services she had been receiving at home.
  • Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland (2008): A and B/Fiona Pilkington was the 38-year-old mother of 18-year-old Francecca Hardwick who had learning disabilities. Fiona killed herself and her daughter in 2007 after they had suffered prolonged harassment from young people on their housing estate. They were never referred into safeguarding systems as the matter was regarded as anti-social behaviour and not recognised as hate crime.
  • Luton (2011): Michael Gilbert (Adult A), age 26, was murdered in early 2009 by a family who had kept him as a slave and to claim his benefits. A care leaver, heavy cannabis user, serially homeless and with possible undiagnosed mental health problems he had been deemed ineligible for Adult Social Care services.
  • North Tyneside (2011): Adult A/Cynthia Barrass was a reclusive 59-year-old woman with learning disabilities, living in council rented accommodation, who died from hypothermia in February 2010. Her carer brother was subsequently found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence.
  • North Yorkshire (2012): Robert was a young, long-term rough sleeper who, due to ill-health, approached agencies for help with his housing two weeks prior to his death from intoxication by morphine in January 2012.
  • Sheffield (2004): MP/Margaret Panting was a 78-year-old woman from Sheffield who died in July 2001, 5 weeks after leaving her sheltered housing scheme to move in with family. A post mortem found 49 injuries on her body including cigarette burns and razor cuts but no-one was prosecuted for this abuse or for causing her death.
  • Southampton (2012): Mr A aged 49, had learning and other disabilities and lived in supported housing in Southampton. He died from natural causes but his death in December 2010 was deemed preventable as the systems in place to deal with his health were inadequate.
  • Stockport (2011): Adult A/Martin Hyde was a 22-year-old man who used alcohol and cannabis, a care leaver with a mild learning disability but with no formal diagnosis establishing his vulnerability or capacity and therefore considered ineligible for services. He lived in accommodation run by Stockport ALMO and received floating support. Martin was murdered in November 2009 because ‘he owed £15 to the girlfriend of one of the men convicted of his murder’.
  • Sunderland (2012): Mrs AM was a socially isolated, physically disabled older woman, living in sheltered housing, who died from a physical assault by a paid carer in 2009.
  • Surrey (1) (2010): 0001 was an autistic and learning disabled man with a history of severely challenging behaviour and psychotic episodes. He had lived in a long-stay hospital for many years prior to moving to a care home, then supported housing. He stabbed a fellow supported housing resident in March 2008 in an apparently unprovoked attack. This man had also been an inpatient at the same long-stay hospital and care home.
  • Surrey (2) (2010): CC was a man with paranoid schizophrenia, secondary cannabis abuse and a personality disorder. He lived in council accommodation after living in a care home. CC was on the enhanced level of Care Programme Approach at the time of his suicide in the summer of 2009.
  • Tameside (2011): David Askew (Adult A) was a 64-year-old man with learning disabilities who lived in a housing association house with his 88-year-old mother and 67-year-old brother, who also had learning disabilities. He died suddenly in March 2010 in his garden of a heart attack and cancer following a long history of hate crime, the stress of which may have exacerbated his previously undiagnosed heart condition.
  • Torbay (2011): Ms Y was a 30-year-old woman with alcohol and drug problems and a highly dysfunctional lifestyle which included several periods of homelessness. She received extensive support from the drop-in centre of the town's homeless unit, funded by Supporting People. Just prior to her death she was admitted to a residential care home from which she went missing. She was later found dead of an alcohol-related illness in a public place in October 2010.
  • Warwickshire (2011): Gemma Hayter, age 27, was murdered by a group of ‘friends’ in August 2010. Although there were changing and conflicting diagnoses over time regarding the nature of her disabilities and behaviour, she had a profoundly chaotic lifestyle and was known to be a vulnerable adult, prone to exploitation and ‘mate crime’. She lived alone in council accommodation and received floating support to help her maintain her tenancy.
  • Worcestershire (2010): A1 was a 58-year-old man with mental and physical health problems, living in a housing association bungalow, receiving special support from the landlord to help maintain his property. His body was found at home by police in March 2009. The causes of his death were pneumonia, paranoid schizophrenia and inanition.

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