A London NHS trust has been fined over half a million pounds after a 22-year-old woman killed herself on a mental health ward described as a 'death trap'. Alice Figueiredo took her own life on the Hepworth ward at Goodmayes Hospital in Redbridge on 7 July 2015, following 18 previous attempts to self-harm.
North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) was fined £565,000 plus £200,000 in costs at the Old Bailey on Tuesday after being found guilty of breaching health and safety laws. The court heard that plastic items used by Figueiredo to self-harm had not been removed from communal toilets. Ward manager Benjamin Aninakwa, 54, was given a six-month suspended prison sentence and 300 hours of unpaid work for failing to take reasonable care for patient safety.
Speaking outside court, Figueiredo's mother Jane said her daughter had been confined to a 'death trap' that was 'a fatality waiting to happen'. She added that her daughter's pleas for help were 'regularly shut down, silenced' and that she was 'failed horribly' by the system.
Judge Richard Marks KC described Figueiredo as a 'beautiful vibrant young woman' and said the accessibility of plastic in communal toilets was a 'very serious problem'. He noted that Aninakwa had failed to address concerns raised by Figueiredo's mother that should have 'rung major alarm bells'. The judge took into account the 10-year delay in the case when suspending the jail sentence.
Figueiredo was first admitted to the ward in May 2012 with diagnoses including an eating disorder and bipolar disorder. The trust failed to remove plastic items or lock toilets despite repeated suicide attempts. NELFT was cleared of corporate manslaughter, and Aninakwa was found not guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence.
