Secure hospital workers lose ill-treatment appeal

Two carers found guilty of ill-treating patients at a secure hospital have lost appeals against their convictions.

Peter Bennett, 55, and Matthew Banner, 44, were among four people convicted of offences at Whorlton Hall, a 17-bed unit for people with complex needs near Barnard Castle, County Durham.

Panorama reporter Olivia Davies worked there undercover in 2019 and recorded footage of patients being mocked and goaded.

The men's lawyers said their actions did not constitute ill-treatment, but appeal judges said that was for the jury to decide.

Bennett was convicted of two counts of ill-treatment of a person in care and Banner five counts of the same offence in April 2023, following a trial at Teesside Crown Court.

Both men received a four-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, and were ordered to complete 280 hours of unpaid work.

Prosecutors said there appeared to have been a "culture of inappropriate behaviour" with claims of "minimal training", the hall being understaffed and "caring for patients being extremely challenging".

The trial was told patients were distressed as they were verbally abused, mocked and wound up by some of the staff at the hospital.

During their sentencing hearing, the court heard that in video footage Bennett caused distress to one patient with a fear of balloons and spoke in French to another patient with communication problems before intimidating her.

The sentencing hearing was also told that Banner goaded the same patient with balloons and threatened to bring in male carers for her, despite knowing she preferred female staff.

David Callan, for Bennett, told the Court of Appeal his client "may not have been professional in twanging a balloon" in front of the patient, but this was "not ill-treatment".

He added he did not think it was a "sensible development of the law" to turn "what might be unprofessional behaviour into a crime".

Stephen Constantine, representing Banner, said: "It cannot surely be that every kind of unfavourable treatment, rough handling or unsympathetic dealings, can necessarily amount to ill-treatment."

But Lord Justice Singh, sitting with Mrs Justice May and Mr Justice Griffiths, rejected their claims, stating that they "squarely raise issues of fact" to be decided by a jury and were "not for the judge or this court".

He said jurors were "well able to decide for themselves whether what they saw and heard in the evidence as a whole constituted the offence of ill-treatment".

Bennett, of of Redworth Close in Billingham, and Banner, of Faulkner Road, Newton Aycliffe, were convicted alongside Ryan Fuller, then 27, of Barnard Castle, and John Sanderson, then 26, of Willington, who were also found guilty of ill-treatment charges.

Several other staff charged with ill-treatment offences were cleared by jurors.

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