Death in custody - Southern Health NHS Trust admits that it breached Connor Sparrowhawk’s human rights and that it caused his death

10/06/16

Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust has today accepted full responsibility for the death of Connor Sparrowhawk and has admitted that it was negligent and violated both Connor's and his family's human rights in failing to protect Connor's preventable death by drowning following an epileptic seizure. The Trust has now published a statement,which is here, confirming that it accepts:

• a number of failings in Connor's care including failures in training of staff, in risk assessment, in bathing arrangements and in communicating with Connor's family;
• that the Trust failed to take all reasonable steps to locate all relevant evidence and to disclose this to the Coroner and Connor's family;
• The findings of the jury on 16 October 2015 and the conclusions of the Verita report  in February 2014;
• that it was negligent;
• that it has breached Connor's and his family's human rights under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is the right to life.

The Trust has agreed to publish the statement on the front page of its website for four weeks and an easy read version will be made available.

A joint press release has been issued by Bindmans LLP and INQUEST.  It is available here 

The Trust’s statement refers to both the inquest jury’s findings (following the inquest in October 2014) and the Verita Report of 2014. The jury’s findings are available here  and the Verita report of 2014  is available here   

More information about the #JusticeforLB (Connor Sparrowhawk) campaign is available here