[2025] EWHC 2684 (KB)

Ms Smith worked from September 2001 to July 2006 as the finance director’s assistant for Chancellor Care Limited, first for Mr Feavers then Dominic Wilson. She stated that she was aware in 2007 that Mr Feavers had said that the police should speak to her about the accounts at Cawston Park, but she was never contacted by the police. She stated that:

“I have been led to believe more recently this was supposedly because my husband was terminally ill at the time…nonetheless this would not have prevented me from seeing the police if they had made contact with me.”

Ms Smith also provided a witness statement to DLA in 2007.

The DLA Piper letter of 1^st February contained the following comments from Ms Smith:

“…For the first several months I shared a large office with Andrew Breeze, Dominic Wilson and Simon Barker. Through doing so I developed a good understanding of how the hospital operated, how patients came to be admitted and how charges were applied. It was in this office that senior clinicians came to discuss patients with each other, how they were doing and the results of new assessments, Occasionally Tony Chancellor would join us. In this office many discussions took place, most of which I was not involved in but overheard because I was working in there. Mark Deveney would have clinical discussions on a daily basis with Simon Barker, and Andrew Breeze being a clinician would join in.

I knew how the charging mechanism for patients worked at Cawston Park because I was in the office where decisions were made between Mark Deveney, Simon Barker, Andrew Breeze, and to a much lesser extent Dominic Wilson.

The process was very similar to what had always taken place at Kelling Park, except the decision to what should actually be charged involved more people. The patient would be assessed, the clinical information analysed and a price for the placement agreed…In some respects it was easier to understand how the price was arrived at compared to Kelling Park because it was clear that there were only two charges associated with the clinical information. One was the core charge, which everybody was charged and the other was the ‘extra care charge’ which was applied depending on the outcome of discussions between primarily Mark Deveney and Simon Barker but also with Andrew Breeze's involvement Dominic Wilson did not get involved with clinical discussions as he was not a clinician and I recall him often stating that he could not have a clinical view because of this. Once a decision on price was agreed Dominic Wilson would then take the necessary steps to implement it.

Mark Deveney would come into this office, often several times a day, but always when he returned from an assessment so that he could discuss it with Simon Barker. These assessments were usually done by Mark Deveney but sometimes the unit managers and/or Simon Barker would accompany him. After the assessment he would write a report, discuss it with Simon Barker and determining a price, core + extra care or core charge only. The PCT would be contacted, following which arrangements would be made for the patient to be admitted. The only other element to do with charging was the cost of drugs which was added by the finance department at the invoicing stage. I raised these invoices and this process was then passed on to Paul Vincent and Sandra Grunwald when they started working at Cawston Park.

Once again patient placements were monitored on a regular basis through the ‘CPA process’. Mark would also write monthly reports for the PCT to update them on how the patients were doing. These would then be sent out with the invoices. On several occasions 1 had to chase Mark Deveney for these reports and sometimes I had to ask him to change them. This is because he had been careless, for example, in the use of cut and paste and they did not make sense. This was just Mark and the reports were changed and sent out, These reports were sometimes seen by Andrew Breeze and Dominic Wilson as they were in the same office and sometimes they were not. I often hand delivered these on my way home.

Once again as with Kelling Park, charges remained the same regardless of whether patients went home at the weekend or not. There had never been a question of charges being reduced when patents were not at Kelling Park or Cawston Park ever since I joined the company in 2001, The ‘CPA Process’ monitored patients and so everybody knew what was happening.

In the five years I worked at Chancellor Care I never heard of a complaint regarding the standard of patient care or the cost of their placements, in fact quite the reverse, I understood many Commissioners, Placement Advisors and Social Workers were very pleased with what we were doing at Chancellor Care and the clinical results that were being achieved with the patients.

…Mark Deveney never complained that he did not have enough staff. I knew him to bring in extra staff from nursing agencies when he thought they were needed because I was responsible for ensuring the invoices were paid. Some months the totals of agency spending were very large. Mark had the authority to order the agency staff as required, At times he was questioned as to why the amount of spending on agency staff was so high but he was never prevented in bringing them in to provide adequate cover. I never observed anyone being asked to do anything they did not want to do. At that time everyone appeared to be working extremely well together.

…From the beginning Andrew Breeze and Simon Barker lived on site. Patients had access to them 24 hours a day. Mark Deveney lived on site for a while but when he was not living there he spent most of his time there. I observed that, in my opinion, the patients were looked after very well and the management treated the staff very fairly. I was very pleased to have been part of such an exciting venture working so closely with those responsible for making it happen.

…When I heard I heard about the allegations I did not believe them. I know that Andrew Breeze, Dominic Wilson and Simon Barker would never do anything like this. I observed the company to be run extremely well both financially and, although not a clinician, what I thought was clinically very well. I felt that I was in a position to make this judgment as I was observing at first hand the decisions that were being taken. Had there been any behaviour that I felt was wrong I am convinced that, because of my close proximity to all the senior staff on such a regular basis and my access to all the financial records, I would have known about it. All the patients seemed to get whatever they needed and I understood some of them did very well compared to other places they had been, some individuals told me themselves they were much happier with their care and the excellent surroundings they found themselves in at Cawston compared to other places they had been. Since the beginning of my time with the company in 2001 I never had any concerns as to how it operated…”

As I have set out Mr Tarrant forwarded the DLA Piper letter to DS Brownsell who responded on the 4th of February 2008. As regards Ms Smith he stated:

“Susan Smith We know of Mrs Smith through the statement of Charles Feavers. We also knew that her husband at the time was critically ill with a brain tumour. He has since died. Her description of the interactions between Barker, Deveney and Breeze is already known and reflected in papers in your possession. Her position about charges for patients whether they are at the hospital or not is irrelevant. We have never disputed the need for Cawston Park to carry on charging a patient’s core cost whilst they were absent from hospital. Our interest is the fact that patients continued to be charged for Extra Care when they were away from the hospital. I would remind you that this enquiry has never been about patient care. ‘It is about the additional charging for patient care called Extra Care. This is reflected by the papers submitted to you.”

Mr Tarrant, considered DS Brownsell’s analysis of the information provided to be a reasonable one and did not advise that statement should be taken from Ms Smith and/or that any further inquiries should be made before a decision was made to the charging.

It is my objective assessment (taking the standard of a reasonable CPS lawyer) that the failure to require DS Brownsell to obtain a statement from Ms Smith was an error by Mr Tarrant. DS Brownsell was not challenged about the explanation given to why Ms Smith was not approached earlier (her husband’s illness) or (surprisingly) about the failure to obtain statements from either Mr Graham or Ms Smith, or his assessment in the e-mail of 4^th February. However it was submitted in closing that the failure to obtain a statement from Ms Smith was “deliberate”, meaning a malicious act. I have heard DS Brownsell cross-examined at length, considered the lengthy documents which he prepared for Mr Tarrant and his e-mail comments and am not satisfied that any act or omission in relation to Ms Smith (or Mr Graham) was malicious. Rather I consider it likely he set out his honest view of the potential significance of the evidence when asked about it. In my judgment he fell into error and should have obtained a statement (regardless of the view of Mr Tarrant) or at the very least suggested to Mr Tarrant that he should do so (taking as my standard the reasonable senior investigating officer). However this case is not about negligence. In any event I find that had a statement been taken from Ms Smith (with the content in line with what she has set out in her statements); it would not have altered Mr Tarrant’s view.