Firm dogged by claims of neglect

DISTURBING allegations of mistreatment and neglect have dogged several other Orbis homes. In 2021, a former support worker at the company’s Ty Coryton residential school in Cardiff alleged she had seen one pupil with learning difficulties being restrained on the floor for nearly 20 minutes. Kristy Edwards said she thought the child ‘was going to die’.

Children were punished for autistic behaviour, she claimed. Accommodation at Ty Coryton (now rebranded as Oakfield House and Birchwood School) was sometimes squalid, she said, and basic hygiene was neglected. The residents’ unspent pocket money was funnelled into Orbis accounts. All these allegations mirror what our son experienced at the Old Vicarage.

They also echo the scandal in 2019 at another Orbis autism home, the Abbey Rose residential school in Tewkesbury, assessed by Ofsted as ‘inadequate’ and closed due to safeguarding and safety concerns — including poor diet and nutrition. Temporary agency workers were often responsible for children with the most complex needs. Safeguarding systems were not effective.

Inspectors found children smeared in faeces and fed on a diet of junk food: one pupil was given 122 chicken nuggets and 14 litres of fizzy drink in the course of a week. Only one toilet roll was available for six bathrooms, with no hand wash or hand towels in the staff bathroom — another direct parallel to the neglect David later suffered. Abbey Rose school shut in November 2020, a year before his nightmare at the Old Vicarage began.

Orbis runs ten care homes across south and west Wales for adults with autism and learning disabilities, and five schools. According to its latest accounts, Orbis showed a turnover of slightly more than £27 million in both 2020-21 and 2021-22. Its operating profits in the year to August 2022 were £3.9 million.