Care home and ex-manager fined after rapist resident attacked dementia patient

A care home and its manager have been fined after an elderly dementia patient was sexually abused by a convicted rapist living in the same residence.

The HICA Group was ordered to pay a £128,000 penalty, and £10,645 costs after admitting its Raleigh Court home failed to safeguard the resident, 75, from abuse and improper treatment, causing her avoidable harm.

Former manager Katie Daysley, 41, denied a similar charge under the Health and Social Care Act but was found guilty by District Judge Daniel Curtis and fined at Beverley Magistrates' Court on Friday.

Robert Carpenter, 65, had attacked the victim after being allowed to mix with dementia patients and those without mental capacity in the mixed gender facility at the home in Cambridge Street, Hull.

This was despite having served a lengthy prison sentence for brutally raping a woman in 1989.

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Carpenter and his victim have since died, but HICA Group admitted charges brought against it by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), adding it was a breach of their duty of care not to act to protect residents when learning of Carpenter’s background.

Carpenter had been in the home for five months when he attacked the 75-year-old woman, having been left alone with her.

Hull City Council had placed him in the care home in January 2018 as an emergency after an accident at his own home and due to neglect concerns.

Despite learning in March that Carpenter’s criminal record included sex offences, the authority failed to inform the Hull-based HICA Group or seek his removal from Raleigh Court.

Representatives of the home claimed management only became aware of Carpenter’s previous conviction for a sexual offence in June 2018 when a police officer visited from the Management of Sexual Offenders and Rape team.

No action was taken and five days later, staff found Carpenter sexually assaulting the female resident.

In 2019, he was convicted and jailed for seven-and-a-half years for engaging in sexual activity with a person with a mental disorder.

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Speaking after the court case, the victim’s husband said he would never forgive those entrusted to care for his wife, but allowed her to be attacked.

He said: “I feel utter and total disgust and anger that a man such as this was allowed to commit such a horrible act on my poor wife, in what was supposedly a safe environment.

“She was the love of my life and she was left as easy prey for a monster who should never have been allowed anywhere near her alone.”

Before the hearing, Hull City Council had also agreed to pay damages to the woman’s husband for its own failings, following representations from Hudgell Solicitors, who represent the woman’s husband.

Solicitor Lauren Dale, of Hudgell Solicitors, added: “Residents were left at the mercy of a convicted sex attacker for months. It was an appalling and inexcusable situation.”

HICA and Daysley will also have to pay victim surcharges of £100 and £120, respectively.