Sutton: Three jailed for abusing care home residents with learning disabilities

Grove House is now operated by a different company and rated as good by the care home regulator

Three carers have been jailed after being convicted of abusing care home residents in south London.

The men punched, slapped and verbally abused residents with learning disabilities at Grove House in Sutton.

One care worker told Croydon Crown Court that she saw "physical assaults everyday" on a resident.

Sentencing the three men earlier, Judge Antony Hymans-Parish said their actions were "cruel" and they had "routinely abused and humiliated" their victims.

Georgios Skordoulis, 28, and Ahmed Hassanen, 54, were each handed a 24-month custodial sentence while Alex Nazareth, 30, was jailed for 18 months.

The care home opened in January 2019 and the abuse came to light a few months later when a member of staff contacted the Metropolitan Police.

The court heard that one resident, Benjamin Daniels, bore the brunt of the assaults.

The 24-year-old, who has severe learning disabilities and very little communication skills, was swung around a room by his waist by Skordoulis.

Another carer saw Nazareth wrap a tea towel around his knuckles and punch Benjamin on his jaw.

(Left to right) Georgios Skordoulis, Ahmed Hassanen and Alex Nazareth verbally and physically abused patients

He then turned to his colleague and said: "That's how you don't leave bruises."

Mr Daniels would often be locked in his room with a heavy wooden oak chair placed under the door handle so that he was unable to get out, or be shut in the home's living room.

A support worker at Grove House said she also saw him naked and locked in the conservatory by staff.

The three men were also seen pinching Mr Daniels, twisting his arm or grabbing him by the hair and dragging him upstairs to his room.

Another resident was regularly referred to as "fatboy" or "greaseball" by both Skordoulis and Hassanen.

Theo Osmani, who has been diagnosed with autism, chromosome disorder and epilepsy, was also regularly hit.

On one occasion when he said he was tired and wanted to go to sleep, Hassanen told all female staff to leave his room.

One female staff member said she could hear shouting and scuffling noises through the door. On other similar occasions she said Theo would come out of his room with his T-shirt ripped and reddened, and he'd need a plaster.

The 22-year-old's mother told the court that when she visited him, he would have bruises on various parts of his body, arms, legs, face and back.

One another occasion, Mr Osmani had a golf-sized lump on his forehead, which Skordoulis explained away as self-harming, even though Theo had no history of self-harming.

'Stressed about my son's future'

In a victim impact statement read to the court, Benjamin Daniel's mother said she could no longer trust any home to look after her son and was caring for him herself.

"I am stressed, anxious and worried about Benny's future," said Elizabeth Daniels. "I've been having panic attacks since I found out what happened at Grove House. I gave up my job and became a full-time carer."

Theo Osmani's mother, Kerry Carter, told the court that what her son had experienced at Grove House "had a significant impact on him, primarily because he was forced to move again which was very disruptive. He remembers that people were unkind".

Ms Carter added: "It has had a significant emotional impact on me as his mother. I knew something was going on at Grove House so I would turn up unexpected. I was afraid of what would happen to him behind closed doors.

"I still feel guilty every day thinking I should have done something sooner. Staff tried to convince me that everything was ok when it wasn't."

The court heard the care home, which was run at the time by the Heathcote Care Home Service, did not have enough staff to deal with the residents it had but continued to admit new service users.

'Cruel breach of trust'

Some staff were allowed to start work before they had completed their full inductions meaning they were insufficiently trained to deal with the particular challenges of dealing with the care home's residents.

The judge said that while he accepted there were problems in the running of Grove House, he told all three men that "when I look at the treatment meted out at these two young people, in my judgement that treatment was wholly unjustified and goes far beyond any difficulties or problems there were managing the home".

The allegations, he went on, were "clearly cruel and there was a very serious breach of trust. There is a very uncomfortable theme of gratuitous degradation of two young people unable to do anything about it".

Speaking after the hearing, Det Con Helen Smith, who led the Met's investigation, said: "This was an extremely challenging investigation but we never wavered in our determination to get justice for the vulnerable victims who were subject to abuse from these three individuals."

After the assaults were discovered, the Grove House care home was sold to the ivolve Group in 2020.

The company said in a statement that the abuse was "upsetting for everybody here, and we're pleased those responsible have been brought to justice".

It added: "Following our acquisition of the home, we made changes to strengthen our service."

Grove House was awarded a Good rating by Care Quality Commission following an inspection carried out in January 2023.

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