Whorlton Hall: Prosecutors put sinister spin on banter

Whorlton Hall in County Durham has closed since the 2019 Panorama documentary

Prosecutors who accused secure hospital staff of ill treating patients have put a "sinister spin" on "unremarkable banter", a court has heard.

Nine former staff at Whorlton Hall, near Barnard Castle, County Durham, deny 27 offences arising from an undercover BBC Panorama film in 2019.

Prosecutors said defendants showed "contempt" for and mocked patients.

In their closing arguments, one defendant's lawyer said staff were right not to be "robots" with patients.

Jurors at Teesside Crown Court have been shown multiple clips filmed by undercover reporter Olivia Davies, who spent 38 days working as a carer at the 17-bedroom hospital for people with severe learning and behavioural difficulties.

'Friendliness'

One clip showed a male patient lying on the floor as if in a restraint while co-defendants Ryan Fuller and Darren Lawton made jokes about it.

Rebecca Brown, representing Mr Lawton, said the patient, who could be aggressive, was joining in the joke and not showing any distress.

She said the incident was was a "total non-event" that even Ms Davies had no independent recollection of.

But, she said, the prosecution were putting a "sinister spin" on an "unremarkable bit of banter".

Ms Brown said just because there was a patient-carer relationship, that did not rule out "friendliness" or "banter".

She said: "Whorlton Hall was the patients' home so it's natural and desirable that their carers won't be robots or cold but down to Earth, funny, familiar, engaged."

Mr Lawton is also accused of deliberately winding up a man who could be extremely aggressive and violent, but Ms Brown asked "why" he would do that.

She said Mr Lawton worked with the man a lot and had "genuine care and affection" for him, adding the pair would regularly "have a laugh together".

'Went wrong'

Shaun Dryden, representing John Sanderson, said his client was 21 years old when he began as a support worker at Whorlton Hall in June 2018 and had no experience of care.

He said jurors might expect that, given the "complex nature of the patients and the complex needs they had", Whorlton Hall would be totally staffed by "fully trained" and "remunerated" mental health nurses but that was not the case.

Mr Dryden said none of the training Mr Sanderson received "equipped him at all" for the job.

He said his client was immediately assigned to "two of the most physically violent patients in the institution" with management having the attitude that "if he could cope with these two he could cope with anyone".

Mr Dryden said it "went wrong fairly quickly" with Mr Sanderson suffering a broken wrist in an assault by one of the male patients.

He was injured again in another assault in December 2018 leaving him off for another five weeks with his "career completely in abeyance".

By the time he returned in January, Ms Davies was at the hospital recording footage, the court heard, and the case against him was based on what he said in clips.

The jury heard the BBC reporter filmed some 200 hours of footage and Mr Sanderson was accused of ill treating patients based on six-and-a-half minutes which had to be viewed "in the context of his experience and what was going on at Whorlton Hall" which was "poorly run" with "weak management" and low levels of staffing.

The "day-to-day reality" was staff would probably be assaulted by patients "every shift", Mr Dryden said.

Mr Sanderson was accused of "teasing" a patient about his medication and on another occasion "threatening" the man and "goading" him.

Of the latter offence, Mr Dryden said the defendant was a "young, immature, effectively untrained" support worker who "had been seriously injured twice" and was trying to "control a situation involving a patient who was habitually violent".

Mr Dryden said there was no physical contact against the patient.

He also said Mr Sanderson used "puerile, childish and obscene language" when talking to Ms Davies in other footage and there was "a lot of silly, exaggerated talk about decking people" but the evidence was none of what he claimed actually happened.

"He may be guilty of stupidity, youth and bad practice, but he is not guilty of ill-treatment," Mr Dryden said.

'Toxic family'

The final defendant, Sabah Mahmood, faces one charge of ill-treating a woman by telling the patient her family was "poison".

The footage showed Ms Mahmood made the comment while trying to stop the woman escalating, and the situation ended with the woman calm again.

Ms Mahmood's lawyer Paul Rooney said on that day, the woman had received a message from her family saying they wished she had died instead of her mother which brought back "painful memories" for Ms Mahmood.

Mr Rooney said his client was raised in a strict household and was "tricked into a forced marriage by her parents" to a man who abused her.

She fled him when she was 18 but was shunned by her family and came to the conclusion her relations were "toxic and poisonous", Mr Rooney said.

He said said when she made the comment to the woman she "believed it" and while the way she said it "may not have been perfect", it helped calm the patient.

He said jurors may think Ms Mahmood was telling the truth when she told the woman her family was poison, adding: "Sabah Mahmood is not a criminal and she should not be made one for telling the truth."

Mr Rooney said Ms Mahmood demonstrated "sympathy" and "empathy" to the woman "without the benefit of any training".

The nine accused face the following number of charges of ill treatment of a person in care:

• John Sanderson, 25, of Cambridge Avenue, Willington - two

• Darren Lawton, 47, of Miners Crescent, Darlington - two

• Niall Mellor, 26, of Lingmell Dene, Coundon, Bishop Auckland - two

• Sara Banner, 33, of Faulkner Road, Newton Aycliffe - three

• Matthew Banner, 43, of the same address - six

• Ryan Fuller, 27, of Deerbolt Bank, Barnard Castle - 10

• Sabah Mahmood, 27, of Woodland Crescent, Kelloe - one

• Peter Bennett, 53, of Redworth Road, Billingham - three

• Karen McGhee, 54, of Wildair Close, Darlington - two

The trial continues.