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The scandal of Winterbourne View Hospital
Edited by Dr Carol Tozer
Simone Blake was just 18 years old when her so-called "carers" poured mouthwash over her face, stinging her eyes. The people paid to care for her had turned almost feral, assaulting and humiliating her - torturing her really - again and again during almost the entire 12-hour shift that they were with her on that day in Spring 2011.
Their abuse was secretly filmed by an undercover reporter working at the hospital as a support worker, for BBC Panorama. In just 16 shifts wearing small pinhole cameras while working with vulnerable people, our undercover reporter saw practically every shortcoming imaginable in a locked, private hospital.
He filmed support workers and nurses, clearly without direction, physically restraining people on the floor, spread-eagled, in some cases for an entire day. Staff would swap limbs to take breaks. He filmed bored patients and bored staff without plans, direction or activity. He filmed patients whose cries for help were ignored, their attempts to self-harm treated, at best, casually. He filmed patients' rooms being stripped as punishment, in some cases, for the crime of standing up to bullies.
And for at least 11 care workers and nurses who abused and neglected patients - or stood by and watched - it went further. Images of Simone pinned under chairs, her hand trodden under foot, screaming, doused in water, left in the cold, force-fed medication, shaking and crying in utter internal withdrawal will haunt not just me but anyone who watched BBC Panorama's film exposing what happened at Winterbourne View Hospital for people with learning disabilities or autism and challenging behaviour.
None of this abuse and mistreatment would have been revealed were it not for events back in 2011, when I drove down with Joe Casey - our undercover reporter who actually worked at Winterbourne View Hospital - to start work. I was there to manage him, manage the investigation and to keep an eye on his footage.
Joe Casey and I stopped at a shopping centre on our way down where I bought four sets of sheets and some pillows. To keep down costs, I had rented an unfurnished house. We slept on mattresses on the floor. I borrowed chairs...