Hull's Raleigh Court home and ex-manager fined after rapist attacked resident

Robert Carpenter was jailed for seven-and-a-half years for the attack in the Hull care home

The owner of a care home has been fined £128,000 after an elderly dementia patient was sexually abused by a fellow resident with a rape conviction.

HICA was also told to pay £10,645 costs after admitting breaching the Health and Social Care Act by failing to protect the woman.

Katie Daysley, former manager of Hull's Raleigh Court, was fined after being found guilty of breaching the same act.

The judge described failures in the case as "simply unforgiveable".

District Judge Dan Curtis, sentencing both HICA and Daysley at Beverley Magistrates' Court on Friday, said not checking rapist Robert Carpenter's background prior to admission in January 2018 was a major failing.

Carpenter, then 65, carried out the attack six months after he was admitted.

Authorities had failed to tell the home of his offending, Daysley's three-day trial heard.

However, even when his historic rape conviction came to light, he was allowed to remain in the home.

Robert Carpenter was housed at Raleigh Court in Cambridge Street, Hull, on an "emergency placement"

In a victim impact statement, described by Mr Curtis as "the most moving" he had heard in his 17 years as a district judge, the husband said he and his wife - married for more than 50 years - had been "inseparable".

The husband said he laid awake at night, thinking he "let her down badly" by placing her in the home.

She later died from unrelated causes.

Carpenter, who was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years' imprisonment in 2019 for the care home attack, died in August 2021.

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Counsels for both Daysley, 41, of Kirk Ella, and HICA apologised to the victim's family.

Andrew McGee, for Daysley, said his client had enjoyed an "exemplary" career prior to the incident.

She was fined £1,000 and ordered to pay £15,067.05 costs.

'Reputational damage'

Tom Gent, representing HICA, accepted failures had been made but argued "a robust admissions policy" had not been followed.

He said the case, brought by the Care Quality Commission, had caused HICA "very significant" reputational damage.

Daysley and HICA were also ordered to pay victim surcharges of £100 and £120, respectively.

The district judge said he accepted the financial penalties would be "meaningless" to the victim's family.