Patient Abuse Caught On Tape Labelled 'Torture' - DISTURBING - BBC BREAKFAST - June 1, 2011

Police in Bristol have arrested four people after secret filming by BBC Panorama found a pattern of serious abuse at a residential hospital.

Winterbourne View treats people with learning disabilities and autism.

Andrew McDonnell, a leading expert in working with adults with mental disabilities, labelled some of the examples captured on film "torture".

The hospital's owners, Castlebeck, have apologised unreservedly and suspended 13 employees.

Avon and Somerset police confirmed that three men and one woman had been arrested as part of their ongoing investigation into the hospital.

During five weeks spent filming undercover, Panorama's reporter captured footage of some of the hospital's most vulnerable patients being repeatedly pinned down, slapped, dragged into showers while fully clothed, taunted and teased.
Patients punished

The hospital is a privately owned, purpose-built, 24-bed facility and is taxpayer-funded.

The families themselves do not know what goes on there"

Terry Bryan Former nurse at Winterbourne View

Mr McDonnell, a clinical psychologist who viewed the footage, told the programme that basic techniques for dealing with patients with challenging behaviour were ignored.

He said he was shocked by the treatment of vulnerable patients at the hands of those charged with their care.

After seeing footage of an 18-year-old patient named Simone being verbally abused and doused with cold water while fully clothed as a punishment, he said: "This is not a jail...people are not here to be punished.

"This is a therapeutic environment. Where's the therapy in any of this? I would argue this is torture."

Simone's parents told the programme that she had told them she was being abused at the hospital, but they had assured her that it would not be allowed to happen.

"She told us, that she had been hit, her hair had been pulled and she'd been kicked - and I said no, this wouldn't happen, they're not allowed," said the patient's mother.

Professor Jim Mansell, from the University of Kent, is a government adviser on the use of physical restraint for those with developmental disabilities.

From the Panorama footage it appeared that staff were "waiting to pounce on people and restrain them", he said.

"This is the worst kind of institutional care. It is the kind of thing that was prevalent at the end of the 60s and that led Britain to gradually close the large, long-stay institutions," he added.

Warnings ignored

The programme decided to film secretly after being approached by a former senior nurse at the hospital who was deeply concerned about the behaviour of some of the support workers caring for patients.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13548222
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/

BBC © 2011

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• care
• home
• abuse
• bristol
• panorama
• BBC
• 2011
• hospital abuse
• patient abuse
• Winterbourne View
• Hospital torture
• torture
• Disturbing

[gulfrazthehunk1]

I WOULD LOVE TO BUMP INTO ONE OF (OR ALL) THE STAFF MEMBERS AND COMPLETELY RUIN THEIR FACES

[SuperWildsnorlax]

Somebody please drop me off by that place so I can beat the shit outta every staff.

[chazman24x]

i'd accept their apology when they're in their graves rotting in hell

[girlygirlyblonde]

THAT SCUMBAG WAYNE AND ALL THE OTHERS MUST OF THOUGHT THEY'D GET AWAY WITH DOING THIS COS THEIR VICTIMS WERE DISABLED/AUTISTIC OR WHATEVER, BUT THEY HAVENT, IM SO GLAD THE WHOLE WORLD WAS ABLE TO SEE WHAT WENT ON AND HOPEFULLY SOMEONE WILL GIVE WAYNE A GOOD BEATING!!!!

[SilentSlumber3]

Fuck me, this is absolutely awful. What disgusting people. I can't believe I hadn't heard of this story until today.

People who can inflict violence upon the vulnerable - or in fact even comprehend it - have no place on this planet, let alone society. Those that knew this was happening and did nothing should also be punished accordingly.

It makes me think that Hitler wasn't exceptionally evil, only exceptionally powerful.

[Brixham0Bird]

THIS MAKES ME SICK. As an autistic person myself if anyone did that to me i would batter them D:

They need to be locked up for a LONG time.

[harpstrings1060]

OMG and these people didn't ask to be born just to put up with it

[disabilityrights2012]

Little shits.Disabled people have rights.I think the people who did this are sick.

[human0un]

this shit happens more often than it doesnt...from abuse in nursing homes and psych wards...there is no law in these places and abuse happens behind closed doors and the law is kept out...the staff makes them nuts and jacks them..these people absuing these patients are the same ones giving them drugs..who knows what in the hell they are giving them

[human0un]

places where abuse does not occur are aminority

[human0un]

if the patients fight back then im sure they are given an overdose then restrained foe 13 hours straight

[SplashSplashFixnaut]

I live in Bristol and after watching this I feel ashamed and embarrassed to live here... this was disgusting.