The Abuse of Grandma B
How York Social Services systematically Abuse the Elderly
Grandma B is 82 years old, disabled and the victim of horrific abuse that is now into its fourth year.
She and her late husband of 60 years, bought a house in York on their retirement, moving there so they could be near to their oldest son and their grandchildren. Their younger son moved abroad to work.
Family life was normal for many years, but age took its toll and Grandma B's husband needed care. The older son persuaded them to sign over their house to him and his family to prevent care costs from depleting the estate. In return, the older son, who is employed by York Social Services, and his family agreed to provide the care and support Grandma B and her husband needed. However, when they did need this support and particularly re-housing in sheltered accommodation, their older son and his family reneged on the agreement and abandoned them. The reason for this was quite simple: had the parental home been sold to finance a move into sheltered accommodation, then capital would have been released over which the older son and his family would have no control.
The younger son, who was living and working abroad, picked up that something was badly wrong here and rushed back to Britain to help his elderly parents.
He reported this abuse to York Social Services (YSS) in September 2008. It is now October 2011 and nothing has been done to stop this abuse.
The younger son, who had now taken over the care of his elderly parents, had a meeting with his parents' social worker, who agreed it seemed abuse was going on and started an investigation. This social worker met with the older son and his daughter, questioned them and reported back to the younger son. The social worker was satisfied there was a case of abuse to answer and a formal safeguarding investigation was started.
This social worker then left YSS. The younger son, now fin ding himself to have become the full-time carer of his parents, chased the new social worker for weeks for news on the safeguarding investigation. The new social worker prevaricated, but for months gave the impression the case was being investigated. He lied. The record shows his line manager blocked the safeguarding investigation the instant the first social worker reported the abuse. The City of York Council (CYC) has refused to release the records of this aspect of the case, despite the fact the Information Commissioners Office has ordered them to do so with a Decision Notice. What does CYC have to hide here?
The heavily redacted records provided under the Freedom of Information Act however do nevertheless reveal inappropriate contacts been Grandma B's social worker, his line manager and senior social workers with the main abuser in which they provided him with confidential information on his victim against her expressed wishes, information that was used to continue the abuse.
The record also shows that Grandma B's social worker surreptitiously cancelled her application for sheltered housing just after having had a meeting with the main abuser. CYC has also refused to release the records of that meeting. It would appear that CYC has something to hide here as well.
Had Grandma B and her husband been transferred to the sheltered accommodation they urgently needed, then their house would have been sold, releasing capital over which their abusers would have had no control.
The carer then applied to the Office of the Public Guarding (OPG) for Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA). It would seem that YSS got wind of this somehow. The carer never mentioned this to them, so it would appear the OPG breached confidentiality and informed YSS the application was in hand.
Grandma B's social worker then turned up at her house unexpectedly and without having made an appointment. Naively, her carer allowed him access to his parents unsupervised. The social worker came out of the meeting grinning and told the carer his parents had agreed to meet the main abuser without any supervision. The carer was horrified, as the social worker was well aware the main abuser was violently psychotic, supposedly under investigation for abuse, and the subject of litigation by the victims of abuse´, which any meeting could prejudice.
The carer then told him to leave their house immediately, but the social worker refused, which is an act of trespass. The carer insisted, and finally this social worker left reluctantly. Grandma B had opened the front door for him to leave, but he kicked out at the door, propelling it in her direction, which is assault, a criminal offence. Grandma B is very fragile and has a history of breaking bones. Fortunately, her carer stopped the door hitting her and closed it. When outside, this social worker kept ringing the doorbell and insisted he should be allowed access again, which is harassment, a criminal offence. All in a day's work for a York social worker, eh?
The carer then made an official complaint to this social worker's line manager. She however unlawfully blocked the Stage 1 investigation and had the social worker fabricate an assault allegation against the carer, who is middle aged and overweight. The object of the exercise here was to discredit the carer, have him removed from caring for his parents and his LPA cancelled, allowing their abusers to gain control of their life savings and finances, which they evidently intended to plunder.
It turned out that the accuser, a fit young man in his twenties, is a black-belt in Kung Fu. His claim to have been attacked, overpowered and physically ejected from Grandma B's home without injury by an unfit, overweight middle-aged man seemed somewhat ridiculous, so a very reluctant CYC was forced to withdraw this obviously false allegation. However, CYC continues to designate the carer as “volatile” and “potentially violent”, unsubstantiated allegations mentioned in the Local Government Ombudsman's report and the records of the OPG. CYC has defied the Data Protection Act (DPA) and refused to allow the carer sight of his own file. This is, of course, unlawful, and adds to the suspicion that CYC has something very unwholesome to hide here.
The carer then applied all the pressure he could to force CYC to undertake a Stage 2 investigation into his complaint. CYC reluctantly agreed to do so, and a senior manager of YSS informed him that the social worker and his manager had been taken off the case. The senior manager lied, as records later obtained by the carer show. It is CYC's normal policy in such cases to suspend social workers facing such allegations pending the outcome of the investigation now in hand, but as the record again shows, they were not suspended and continued to work on Grandma B's case.
What these social workers were doing was engaging the OPG in correspondence and trying to find out how to have the carer's LPA withdrawn, so that the main abuser could seize what was left of her assets. This is conspiracy to defraud, a serious criminal offence.
When the OPG told YSS they had no grounds to apply to have their LPA annulled, they held an unlawfully safeguarding conference in January 2009 in which the carer was declared an abuser. The meeting was unlawful because the person accused of the abuse – the carer – was not informed of the meeting, was not given an opportunity of replying to the accusations, which is a breach of council policy, and his DPA Subject Access Request has been unlawfully denied. This further adds to the suspicion that CYC has something very unwholesome to hide here.
Armed with this bogus safeguarding report, YSS then approached the OPG with a request for the OPG to apply to the Court of Protection to have the carer's LPA revoked. The OPG investigated YSS's allegations and found them in conflict with the evidence. However, the OPG did not report this attempt to defraud Grandma B of her assets to the police. This matter is now the subject of an investigation by the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman.
Thwarted in their attempt to seize the remainder of her assets, the abusers took advantage of the fact that she was away from home on holiday and forced entry to her house, changed the locks and unlawfully evicted her.
CYC denies their employee has committed an act of abuse by unlawfully evicting an 82 year-old invalid from her own housed and denies she has been made homeless.
The abusers then indicated their intention to (fraudulently) sell Grandma B's house. Again, CYC raised no objections to one of their employees committing a serious criminal offence against a vulnerable person and have not taken any form of disciplinary action against him. This abuser has access to further potential victims, who are directed to him via CYC's website.
Grandma B's two local councillors refused to intervene in the case and instead fabricated allegations against her carer and the fraud investigator working on the case. This is, of course, a criminal offence of conspiracy to defraud. Shortly after committing this serious criminal offence, one of the ward councillors in question was made Lord Mayor of York, while the other was given the portfolio of Adult Social Services.
Fortunately, Grandma B's solicitors prevented her abusers from unlawfully selling her house.
In the middle of this episode, the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) published a report in December 2010 in which he described CYC's earlier safeguarding investigation into the abuse of Grandma B as “irregular”, as the main abuser's colleagues had withheld all evidence of abuse to prevent him (and themselves) being prosecuted.
The LGO instructed CYC to reopen the safeguarding investigation “immediately”. CYC reacted by terminating all contact with Grandma B's solicitor, then, along with officers of North Yorkshire Police (NYP), fabricated a kidnapping allegation against the carer (he and Grandma B were on holiday abroad when they were unlawfully evicted from their house and have been stranded abroad ever since). This request for the carer to be arrested was made by a civilian employee of NYP, which is unlawful, forwarded to York CID for approval, before being sent on to Special Branch, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, New Scotland Yard and Interpol before the local police in Grandma B's place of refuge investigated and found these allegations to be totally without foundation.
CYC's objective here was to have the main witness in a corruption case against them arrested, extradited and so silenced, while they could then take control of Grandma B, force her into their care, plunder her assets and kill her off.
Fortunately, this ploy did not work.
Since then, and it is now October 2011, CYC has ignored all requests to reopen the safeguarding investigation into the abuse of Grandma B. This further adds to the suspicion that CYC has something very unwholesome to hide here.
The abuse of Grandma B is now into its fourth year. CYC has persistently refused to carry out its statutory duty of care to a vulnerable person. Senior officers of CYC and various councillors have not only be merely negligent in their actions, they have gone so far as to break the law to assist one of their own to defraud his own, elderly mother.
The attempts by Grandma B's carer to force CYC to carry out its legal obligations have been met with prevarication, obstruction, dishonesty and the committing of a series of serious criminal offences in an attempt to silence the carer of a victim of sustained abuse.
For further details of this case, please see:
http://grandmabarbara.wordpress.com/
If any readers know of similar cases, they are asked to send a private message to the above blog.
Last Updated (Monday, 14 November 2011 15:59)
