Care homes used the disabled as slaves

Residents forced to clean toilets – and thrown in ‘punishment rooms’ if they refused . . .

CARE home residents with learning disabilities were used as slaves to clean toilets and locked in freezing punishment rooms for refusing.

Thirteen bosses and staff have been convicted following four trials over the past year that can only now be reported.

Victims aged 19 to 61 were forced to do housework at the understaffed homes run by a millionaire family. If they did not comply, they were locked overnight in tiny rooms with no heating or toilet and little food and drink.

One severely disabled man was shut in his own bedroom up to 20 times a day. In one fivemonth period he was locked in 1,329 times.

A 42-year-old woman with severe obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) was tied up using her own clothes and locked up overnight.

Autistic Ben Garrod was locked in a punishment room for refusing to do laundry. He had been moved to the home run by the firm Atlas Project Team after being assaulted at the notorious Winterbourne View home, where six staff were jailed after horrific abuse was exposed in 2011.

Atlas staff even made sure residents kept quiet by recording phone calls to their families. The firm charged councils £4,000 a week to look after adults who could not live with their families because of their acute needs.

The details can be reported after staff, including the owners, were convicted of charges relating to the ‘ organised and systemic abuse’ of residents. Their sentences include 28 months in jail and fines of up to £12,500.

The case comes amid a growing outcry over the social care system, which is in crisis – and care home regulators now face serious questions over their failure to spot the abuse.

Last night, the Care Quality Commission watchdog admitted checks it made on the homes before the scandal broke should have been more rigorous after revealing that one inspection even failed to find one of the punishment rooms. We can now reveal that: Terrified victims were forced to do chores six days a week without their families knowing;

Residents had to work for treats such as fruit;

After the scandal broke, the homes’ owners tried to take almost £2million from the winding down of the company.

Disabled adults were abused for at least two years at Atlas Project Team care homes.

Victims were paid a negligible amount of pocket money to do chores – said to be as little as £5 a week. They were also repeatedly locked in two punishment rooms at homes in Devon, Bristol Crown Court heard. The cells – called the ‘quiet room’ and the ‘garden room’ – were almost bare and unheated. One had just a punctured inflatable mattress and a security camera.

Staff tried to correct residents’ behaviour as if they were training animals, the court heard.

A deaf woman with learning disabilities was locked up 200 times in two years.

Another woman, a 42-year-old with severe OCD, was often taunted by staff, who called her a ‘dirty b****’ for wetting her bed.

The abuse stopped only after a resident called the Care Quality Commission.

He told the court that being shut inside the punishment room was ‘too unspeakable’, adding: ‘Anything I had done, they used to put me in there.

‘It was disgusting and cold. There was no handle on the inside and there was a handle on the outside. If you wanted to go to the toilet, there was no toilet.

‘There was a window but it was locked. No curtains. They made the room as bad as possible and as uncomfortable as possible.’

Police began investigating in 2011 and arrested and charged owners and staff in 2014, leading to the prosecution of 24 people in four trials, which have run for more than a year. The abuse can now be revealed after reporting restrictions were lifted at the conclusion of the trials.

It is thought to be the first time directors have been prosecuted alongside staff. The trials focused on abuse in 2010 and 2011 at two homes – Veilstone in Bideford and Gatooma in Holsworthy. Although Atlas ran 14 homes in Devon, Berkshire and Hampshire – all of which have now been closed – the complex case focused on just two of them to make it more manageable and to secure convictions.

But families said the abuse may have gone on for 20 years. One victim’s mother said: ‘They were given £5 a week to do cooking, cleaning, gardening, six days a week, 10am to 8pm with an hour for lunch, with Sundays, birthdays and Christmas off. They were keeping them as slaves.’

Jan Tregelles, of the charity Mencap, and Vivien Cooper, of the Challenging Behaviour Foundation, said in a statement: ‘The evidence has been chilling. Despite warning signs, it took far too long for the abusive practices to be exposed.’

Judge William Hart said there had been ‘almost systematic neglect’ at the homes, adding: ‘Residents were deprived of their liberty over and over again. It became a way of life in Atlas. It became the norm.’