Hospital staff filmed mistreating vulnerable patients lose appeals against convictions

Two staff members at a specialist hospital unit who were filmed mistreating vulnerable patients have lost challenges against their convictions at the Court of Appeal.

Peter Bennett, 55, and Matthew Banner, 44, were found guilty of ill-treatment of patients at Whorlton Hall, a 17-bed independent unit for people with complex needs near Barnard Castle, County Durham, and sentenced in January.

The men were recorded by undercover BBC Panorama reporter Olivia Davies, who used a hidden camera to expose the poor treatment patients received behind the closed doors of the hospital unit in 2019.

Their barristers told a hearing in London in September that their actions “did not meet the test for ill-treatment”, but in a ruling on Friday, three judges dismissed their appeals.

Lord Justice Singh said: “In our judgment, the questions which this case raised on the relevant counts against these appellants were classically ones for the tribunal of fact, the jury, to decide after hearing all the evidence.”

He continued: “They were well able to decide for themselves whether what they saw and heard in the evidence as a whole constituted the offence of ill-treatment.”

Bennett was convicted of two counts of ill-treatment of a person in care, and Banner five counts of the same offence, in April 2023 following a trial at Teesside Crown Court.

Both men received a four-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to complete 280 hours of unpaid work.

Their trial heard that staff at Whorlton Hall supported patients who were detained under the Mental Health Act and who required 24-hour care.

Prosecutors said there appeared to have been a “culture of inappropriate behaviour,” with claims of “minimal training,” the hall being understaffed, and “caring for patients being extremely challenging”.

The trial was told patients were distressed as they were verbally abused, mocked and wound up by some of the staff at the hospital.

During their sentencing hearing, the court heard that in video footage Bennett caused distress to one patient with a fear of balloons and spoke in French to another patient with communication problems before intimidating her.

The sentencing hearing was also told that Banner goaded the same patient with balloons and threatened to bring in male carers for her, despite knowing she preferred female staff.

David Callan, for Bennett, told the Court of Appeal that his client “may not have been professional in twanging a balloon” in front of the patient, but this was “not ill-treatment”.

He added that he did not think it was a “sensible development of the law” to turn “what might be unprofessional behaviour into a crime”.

Stephen Constantine, representing Banner, said: “It cannot surely be that every kind of unfavourable treatment, rough handling or unsympathetic dealings, can necessarily amount to ill-treatment.”

But Lord Justice Singh, sitting with Mrs Justice May and Mr Justice Griffiths, rejected their claims, stating that they “squarely raise issues of fact” to be decided by a jury and were “not for the judge or this court”.

Bennett and Banner were convicted alongside Ryan Fuller, then 27, of Barnard Castle, and John Sanderson, then 26, of Willington, who were also found guilty of ill-treatment charges.

Several other staff charged with ill-treatment offences were cleared by jurors.

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