A care home and a council have been found guilty of maladministration and failing to protect a man in a wheel chair.
The home, which is in Leicester, spent large amounts of a severely disabled man’s money on clothes for women and children, make up, perfume, zumba classes and chiropody - all of this despite the fact he was in a wheelchair and had no wife or children.
The appalling scandal was only uncovered by the insistence of disabled Ian Reeves' sister Sharon McConnell that the home account for his missing money. Mr Reeves was a resident at Marston Court Care Home in Marston Road from 2007 until he died in February 2021. Sharon became his next of kin after their mother died in 2018 and developed serious concerns about the care he was receiving and how his money was being spent.
LeicestershireLive reported that she then complained to both the home and Leicester City Council - which led to a four year battle to uncover the truth over how the home had spent his money. Both the Marsden Court and the council have now finally been found guilty of failing her brother and maladministration by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman - but Sharon says she has still been left with more questions that answers over the suspicious spending.
Sharon said: “We had no access to his bedroom. It was only when we started asking for more privacy in 2019 because he was on end of life care that we realised things weren’t as they should have been.
"When I actually got into his bedroom, I could see it was bare. It was like a prison cell, he was sitting in a broken wheelchair.”
Sharon then asked to take over control of her brother’s finances as sole appointee, but was initially refused by the council. She then applied to the courts to become a deputy with the council retaining the role of appointee, which was granted.
She said: “I became deputy in July 2020 and that’s when I then requested things like audits, accounts, show me what you’re doing with his money, show me what you’re doing with his care. I was shocked beyond belief by what I discovered.
“There were thousands in his bank account. Thousands of pounds had gone in, thousands of pounds had been withdrawn over the years. They have given me some receipts and some log sheets saying what his money has been spent on. So I have a hand written receipt for £280 cash, Christmas.
'He never had those toys...they were not in his things upon his death'
Sharon added: “There were also receipts for Primark, ladies clothes, children’s clothes and toys, makeup… The receipts suggest they weren’t things which were bought for him.
“There were some receipts for pull along toys. He couldn’t move his hands or legs and was in a haunched position, he couldn’t lift his head. There is equipment available for people with these severe disabilities and I would really disagree that he should have had to have a child’s toy fit for a two year old because he was disabled and had mobility issues.
“You’d forgive someone for buying something they felt was suitable for him, but this was a number of toys. And he didn’t have those toys, we never saw them with him, and they were not in his things upon his death.”
Ian died in hospital in 2021, aged 54, while waiting to be moved to a new care home. Sharon said his health had deteriorated dramatically and the family thought he would be better off elsewhere.
“He wasn’t able to walk, he wasn’t able to talk, his head was on his chest. His head had grown so I was concerned about the fluid on his brain, he was in a very poor condition. He moved in able to stand, talk.”
Sharon also found her wheelchair-bound brother’s money had been spent on Zumba classes and chiropody, which she also found strange. The council told her the Zumba classes were specially adapted and he enjoyed taking part.
Money went missing - and so did financial records
But the spending on clothes, cosmetics and toys still didn’t sit right with Sharon who also noticed £250 a week had been paid into one of her brother’s accounts as a personal needs allowance, when she had been told it should only be £96.
The money had built up to more than £11,000, which should have been moved when a new pre-paid card system was introduced. But the money was not moved and the home archived the account which meant both it and council lost track of the cash.
Ian’s benefits were paid into a different account and had also built up to such a high amount that he should have been disqualified from claiming income support and having his care funded by the council.
Sharon asked the home for more information but felt it took too long to respond and had only provided financial documents from 2018. It said Ian’s money was being managed ‘in line with policy’ but admitted its records were limited.
Sharon then urged the council, the police, the Care Quality Commission and the ombudsman to carry out their own investigations.
The CQC did not take the matter further. Leicestershire Police started to look into the case, but told the council it was not progressing with a criminal investigation around ten weeks after it started looking into the matter.
The council also restarted its safeguarding inquiry, which took four months to complete. It concluded the home had mismanaged her brother’s finances and that more than £1,500 of his money was ‘unaccounted for’. It ordered the home to apologise, pay the missing money back and carry out a review of its policies for managing residents’ finances.
But the home did not accept the council’s findings and claimed the spending on Zumba classes, clothing and toys all met Ian’s needs.
'There will always be a question over whether the money could have been better spent on his needs'
The ombudsman has since concluded both the council and home mismanaged Ian’s finances. Its report, which refers to Ian only as ‘Mr C’, highlights a catalogue of mistakes by both organisations.
It says: “It is my understanding that the council could not find evidence it had ever carried out a review of Mr C’s finances in all the years that it was acting as his appointee which is a very serious concern.
“The Council’s failure left Mr C more vulnerable to financial abuse. Also, as nobody was checking what money was spent or how it was spent, it resulted in a large build-up of savings (over £30,000 in total) in Mr C’s accounts and this should not have happened.
“There will always be the question whether, if there had been regular reviews, the money could have been better spent on meeting Mr C’s needs. Maybe, Mr C could have had more treats, outings or holidays with the money that was sitting in these accounts. Sadly, as Mr C has passed away, this injustice to him cannot be rectified.”
It added: “Overall, there were serious failings in the way the Council managed Mr C’s finances.”
The ombudsman also pointed out there are still outstanding questions on how Ian’s money came to be spent on women and children’s clothes, toys, cosmetics and a large amount of other clothing and toiletries. It has also criticised the amount of time it took the council to complete the safeguarding inquiry, its failure to address the concerns and the home’s lack of proper records.
The council has agreed to apologise to Sharon, pay her £500 in compensation and review the safeguarding report.
The ombudsman also carried out a second inquiry over the way the council dealt with Sharon’s requests for oversight of her brother’s finances.
It concluded the council’s decision to refuse her overall control did not make sense when it did not object to her becoming a deputy.
The council has also agreed to pay back half the legal fees from her application to become his deputy through the courts.
Council and home apologise
A Leicester City Council spokesperson said: “We are sorry that our management of this resident’s finances was not up the standard it should have been, and following our own investigation we have since reviewed and updated our procedures to ensure this does not happen again.
“We accept the Ombudsman’s findings and have apologised to the complainant. We have already carried out some of the recommendations made and are in the process of completing others.”
A spokesperson for Marston Court said: “Mr Reeves was a treasured resident who lived happily at Marston Court for 14 years. His mother was very supportive of his placement and visited regularly as she lived close by up until she passed away. Our deepest sympathies go to all the family for the loss of their loved one.
“We’re sorry that Ms McConnell was unhappy with elements of her brother’s care, and we acknowledge there are some good practice lessons highlighted by the Ombudsman with regard to managing receipts and payments and have already acted on them to put these lessons into practice. However, we don’t recognise some of the other concerns raised.
“Marston Court has been officially inspected and rated by the Care Quality Commission as a good home that provides a good quality safe, effective and caring service for its residents, and the health, wellbeing and comfort of our residents is our number one priority at all times. We work hard to personalise the rooms of the people in our care at Marston Court, and the council and other professionals regularly visited the home and viewed Mr. Reeves’ room.”
Still more questions than answers
But Sharon feels that the apologies from the council and the home ring hollow after all the effort she had to put in to get to the bottom of how his finances were handled. And she has still been left with questions which have not been answered.
“Their apology is almost irrelevant. What does it mean to us? It means nothing. We did feel like saying ‘shove your apology’. They’re being made to apologise, it’s like making a naughty child apologise for their bad behaviour.
“We can’t change it for him now,” she said. “But I just feel really sorry that this wasn’t dealt with while he was alive so we could have improved things for him.
“Thousands went missing from his estate, and there was nothing to show for it. Not only that, no day-trips or holidays or outings, no quality of life.
“He brought in a lot of money, so yes I’m very sure they’re sorry to have lost him because they’ve lost a huge amount of money each month they could freely dip into. I’m still furious about it.”
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