Survivors of abuse at children’s ­psychiatric hospital to receive huge compensation payouts

DOZENS of survivors of abuse at a children’s ­psychiatric hospital will receive compensation of up to £125,000 each.

Victims as young as ten were sedated up to 40 times, often as punishment, and left open to physical and sexual harm.

Compensation is being paid by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

The settlement with about 70 victims comes after a three-year police major crime inquiry into Hill End Adolescent Unit in St Albans, Herts.

Conditions at the facility, for under-16s between 1969 and 1995, were “hostile, experimental and abusive”.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting is writing to victims and their families to apologise privately.

Former patient Laurence Allen said: “The scheme for me, and I’m sure for others, is the start of a journey towards acknowledgement and closure.

"It is a recognition that what we went through as children happened, that it was wrong and that it has caused unimaginable damage.

"When we were children, we had no voice.

"Finally, after all these years, we have been listened to and given a voice.”

Another patient Stan Burridge said: “I sincerely hope that this scheme will ease at least some of the pain for those of us who have survived and stand as a deserved and lasting tribute to the countless others who aren’t here to see this day finally arrive.”

An abuse victim, at the unit aged 11, told of his experience: “We were beaten, we were punched, we were put in headlocks, we had our heads rammed into doors…I was one of the lucky ones because I wasn’t raped, but I know of other people who were.”

Hill End was supposed to treat teens with psychiatric illnesses, but by the time the lad arrived it had become a “dumping ground” for kids for whom the NHS and local authorities had run out of other ideas.
He said of his first night at the unit: “I remember being dragged by three men into what looked like a police cell…and I was then having a needle shoved inside me to be put to sleep. Four, five days a week I was sedated."

He told how young patients deemed to be misbehaving were locked in the “cell”, ordered to drink a liquid sedative and then forcibly injected if they refused. One child appeared to go into cardiac arrest on the hospital floor after being given too much medication to sedate him.

“They got his heart restarted and just dumped him back into bed,” he said. “There was probably never any record whatsoever."

Legal firm Leigh Day have fought for compensation for patients from Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust and the Secretary of State for Health and Social. 

Senior solicitor Saoirse Kerrigan told The Sun: “The descriptions our clients have provided of Hill End Adolescent Unit are of a brutal and dark place. The evidence we have seen shows that for many years children who went through the unit were routinely sedated as a form of punishment and control, often rendering them unconscious and vulnerable to abuse, and leaving them traumatised for many years to come.

“We hope that the compensation scheme we have been able to agree will make our clients feel that they are finally being heard and give them some sense of accountability and closure. We also hope that many more will be able to benefit from the scheme.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson told The Sun: “Apologies have been issued for the events at Hill End and we will do everything in our power to make sure other families do not suffer such an appalling breach of trust in the future.

“Every patient deserves to be treated with dignity, care, and safety."

A spokesperson for the Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust told The Sun: “The care that took place at Hill End Adolescent Unit between 1969 and 1995 was unacceptable.    

“As the Trust who now provide mental health services in Hertfordshire, we are deeply sorry that people had such traumatic experiences of services at Hill End.  We are confident that services are very different today and we are committed to the safety and experience of all those we care for.

“The legal process, with regard to claims, is ongoing.”