Sally Lewis’s inquest concluded this afternoon with the coroner finding that her death was contributed to by neglect. David Reid, Senior Coroner for Worcestershire said that no short form conclusion could properly describe or summarise the events in this case, so he’d give a short narrative conclusion. I’m going to report this in stages, this […]
Today, the final day of Sally’s inquest, her sister Julie Bennett addressed the court, reading a pen portrait of her sister Sally. The coroner invited her to take her time, to pause, or they could break if necessary. This is what she said: Even though Sally was at Sunfield when Terry and I came along, […]
The final witness that we heard from on Day 3 was Julie Harris from Worcestershire County Council. She is an Advanced Social Work Professional in the Safeguarding Adults Team at Worcestershire CC and she managed to speak loudly, clearly and into the microphone and it was an auditory relief. We heard she was the author […]
The first witness on Day 3 of Sally’s inquest was the court appointed expert, Professor Sir Ian Gilmore. He gave an affirmation and started by explaining that more evidence had come to light since he’d submitted his report and that’s why he’d shared two medical journal articles. Professor Gilmore gave his name, affiliation and an […]
The final two Dimensions UK witnesses were Deborah Hubbocks, a Health and Safety Advisor for Dimensions who conducted their internal investigation after Sally died, and Lorna Owen who was a Support Worker who left Dimensions before Sally died, and her statement was read onto the record by the coroner. Deborah Hubbocks Deborah Hubbocks spoke very […]
I’m reporting these witnesses slightly out of order because we heard from the court appointed expert first thing on Day 3, but I’ll finish the Dimensions witnesses first. Ms Campbell was taken through her evidence and questioned by the coroner for about 45 minutes before lunch, and by other counsel for half an hour after […]
The last witness to give evidence on Day 2 of Sally’s inquest was Julie McGirr, a previous employee of Dimensions. She told the coroner that at the time of Sally’s death she was employed by Dimensions UK as a Locality Manager and in that role she was responsible for overseeing a number of Supported Living […]
Yesterday afternoon (Day 2), before calling another witness from Dimensions the coroner, Mr David Reid, summarised and read onto the record, the evidence from Sally’s post mortem conducted by Dr Terry Jones, who is a consultant histopathologist. The coroner said that Dr Jones had provided a report concerning his autopsy on Sally carried out on […]
Yesterday morning the court’s third witness was Dr Christopher Williamson. He told the court that he was a GP Partner at Churchfields Surgery, Bromsgrove and Sally registered with the GP practice in 2010. He had only met Sally on one occasion, for her learning disability review (which I assume to be their terminology for her […]
The second witness called to give evidence on Day 2 of Sally’s inquest was Sonia Parchment. The coroner asked her a number of questions, and the sound was a bit intermittent but much better than the last witness. He started by asking whether she worked for Dimensions in October 2017, she did, whether she still […]