Lifting the shroud of chilling State secrecy

TODAY the Mail can finally reveal the identity of Alfred Dodd, the 85-year-old dementia patient who died six weeks ago following the chaotic State evacuation of his Surrey care home in freezing conditions.

We also highlight the harrowing case of 91-year- old Winifred Lake who passed away after being shifted in similar circumstances from a second home, in South London, under the same controversial ownership.

The families fear the upheaval may have hastened their loved ones’ deaths and are understandably demanding an investigation into what went so tragically wrong.

The Care Quality Commission certainly has serious questions to answer, not least over why it gave the Surrey home a clean bill of health in January last year – only to decide in December that its residents were in danger and must be urgently relocated on one of the coldest nights of the year, in some cases dressed in their pyjamas.

What is most disturbing, however, is that had the authorities had their way the families of the dead would have been left without a voice.

The NHS, local councils, register offices and the coroner, who closed Mr Dodd’s case without a single public hearing, all disgracefully refused to release the names – apparently to prevent journalists from making contact with relatives.

It was only after efforts by this newspaper that we managed to find them and today allow their traumatic story to be told.

For a vulnerable person to die following an intervention by the State is potentially a gravely serious matter.

To attempt to cover the whole sorry episode in a shroud of official secrecy is nothing less than chilling.