NHS Trust Fined Over “Preventable” Death of 22-Year-Old on Mental Health Ward
A London hospital trust has been fined more than £500,000 after a 22-year-old woman took her own life on a mental health ward that her mother described as a “death trap.”
Alice Figueiredo died at Goodmayes Hospital in Redbridge in 2015 after using plastic bin bags from a communal toilet to take her life. Alice had been admitted to Hepworth Ward in 2012 with bipolar affective disorder and an eating disorder. Despite at least 18 previous suicide attempts, plastic materials remained available in communal areas. The items had previously been identified as a risk, but the North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) failed to remove them.
At the Old Bailey, Judge Richard Marks KC fined the trust £565,000 plus £200,000 in costs for breaching health and safety laws. He also sentenced ward manager Benjamin Aninakwa, 54, to six months in prison, suspended for 12 months, and ordered him to complete 300 hours of unpaid work.
Marks called Figueiredo a “beautiful vibrant young woman” who was “hugely talented” and said her death was “a terrible tragedy.” He added there had been “a complete failure to adequately assess and manage the risk” of keeping plastic bags accessible on the ward.
The judge said Aninakwa “knew that she was suicidal – she was the only patient on the ward that was” and criticised him for failing to act on warnings from Alice’s mother, saying her concerns should have “rung major alarm bells.”
Alice’s mother, Jane Figueiredo, described how her daughter’s repeated pleas for help were ignored. Speaking outside court, she said her daughter had been confined to “a fatality waiting to happen” and that “people behind the locked doors on mental health wards are some of the least seen and heard people in our communities.”
In a statement read to court, she said her family had been treated with “dismissive contempt, belittling and playing down” their concerns and that some staff showed “unkindness, harshness, indifference, ignorance, even at times cruelty.” She described Alice as a “uniquely beautiful, brave, affectionate, generous, kind, colourful, creative and luminous spirit.”
Aninakwa and the trust denied wrongdoing but were convicted of health and safety breaches. Both were cleared of the more serious charges of corporate and gross negligence manslaughter.
After sentencing, NELFT chief executive Paul Calaminus said he had written to the family to apologise personally, adding the trust was “deeply sorry, both for Alice’s untimely death and for everything that her family and friends have had to endure over the last decade.” He said improvements had been made since her death, though admitted that the fine could affect services.
The case, which took nearly a decade to come to trial, has renewed calls for accountability in mental health care and better protection for vulnerable patients.
