After a convicted rapist sexually abused a person with dementia weeks after staff members were made aware of his “brutal” criminal background, a care home owner and manager were fined £146,000.
Despite having prior convictions dating back to 1968, including serving a lengthy prison sentence for beating and raping a woman as she walked to work in 1979, Robert Carpenter, 66, was able to interact with dementia patients at Raleigh Court, run by the Humberside Independent Care Association (HICA).
The care home’s manager, Katie Daysley, was also fined more than £16,000 for failing to protect the resident after learning that Carpenter was a sex offender and had a history of violence and drug use weeks prior to the attack in June 2018.
Carpenter was permitted to stay at the facility despite HICA’s admissions policy stating that people with a history of criminal sexual offences should not be accepted to its facilities. This was due to the provider’s lack of an effective admissions policy and a complete risk assessment.
The care home pleaded guilty to violating the Health and Social Care Act’s avoidable harm provisions by failing to protect the person from abuse and improper treatment.
Daysley, 41, of Kirk Ella, denied a related accusation but was found guilty on Friday at Beverley Magistrates’ Court after a two-day trial.
According to testimony given in court, Raleigh Court, located on Cambridge Street, offers care to elderly people, many of whom struggle with dementia or lack mental capacity.
Since August 2017, the victim had been residing at the house.
Carpenter, who had capacity, has lived there since January 2018, when Hull City Council admitted him as a “emergency placement” after learning that he had burns from a “electrical incident” at his house.
He served three jail terms with convictions for criminal damage, assault, wounding, causing great bodily injury, and sexual assaults, social worker Claire Stewart learned three months later.
He picked out a woman who was walking home from work in March 1979, shoved a scarf into her mouth to stop her from shouting, broke her jaw, raped her, and threw her over a fence.
Following a review of forensic evidence in a cold case, he was detained in 2009 and sentenced to 18 months in prison.
When the social worker realised there was a serious “public interest” concern, she quickly alerted Daysley of his entire criminal past.
However, Daysley did not conduct a thorough risk analysis or put in place “adequate mitigating steps” to address the “very clear risk.” Exactly one month before Carpenter’s “serious sex assault,” she quit her job in May 2018.
Carpenter was discovered performing the sex assault six months after moving in and five days after a police officer checked on him there.
Later, he was found guilty of having intercourse with a person who had a mental disorder and sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.
At his trial, the judge reportedly stated that Carpenter knew “fullwell” that his victim lacked mental ability and reprimanded him for taking “full advantage of that for your own sexual gratification.”
Before her husband made the heartbreaking decision to put his wife in a care home as her dementia got worse, the victim had been married for more than 50 years and had led a happy and “faithful” marriage.
Alison Chilton, head of the Care Quality Commission’s adult social care inspection, said: ‘This is a really distressing case and our sympathies are with the family. It’s vital that health and social are organisations have adequate systems and processes in place to protect people from any kind of harm or abuse as everyone has the right to be kept safe while living in and receiving care.
‘This was not the case at HICA and the provider and manager failed in their legal duty to protect this vulnerable person.
‘The home has since put in place a new policy to protect people and they must ensure this is fully embedded to keep people safe and make sure they are not at risk of harm or abuse.
‘I hope this prosecution reminds HICA and other care providers of their duty to assess and manage all risks to ensure people are kept safe.’
The victim’s husband previously said he will never forgive those who made his wife ‘easy prey for a monster’.
He added: ‘This should never have been allowed to happen and nothing like this must ever be allowed to happen again.
‘I made the hardest decision of my life to put my wife and one true love into a care home, and for this to have happened to her is absolutely heartbreaking.
‘I feel utter and total disgust and anger that a man such as this was allowed to commit such a horrible act on my poor wife, in what was supposedly a safe environment.
‘She was the love of my life and she was left as easy prey for a monster who should never have been allowed anywhere near her alone.’
Both the victim and Carpenter have since died.
A new management of offenders policy that outlines the procedures the home must follow if a resident has a history of offences was implemented by HICA as a result of the occurrence.
Hull City Council decided to compensate the woman’s husband for its own mistakes before to the hearing.
The victim’s husband added: ‘It is simply beyond belief that a convicted rapist was able to mix with the most vulnerable of people.
‘Everybody involved at the council in terms of the decision to put him in the home and leave him there, and at the home when they found out about his past, I hold responsible.
‘That monster was left to be alone with my wife. We know what happened to her, but we don’t know that she was his only victim given he was in the home for a month. People like that don’t only do this once in isolation.’
On Friday, the magistrates’ court sentenced HICA and Daysley.
A £128,000 fine, a £120 victim surcharge, and £10,645 in costs were imposed on HICA by the Care Quality Commission, who brought the case.
Daysley was ordered to pay £1000 in fines, as well as £15,067 in costs and a £100 victim surcharge.