Serious life ending Sexual assault on a stroke ward

This is one of the most awful things I’ve ever read. Dear God.

This hospital is near to me. It was previously investigated as the staff had been drugging the patients to keep them quiet. If I remember correctly a couple of nurses received prison sentences due to this criminal drugging of patients and many other staff were involved and aware and received suspended sentences etc one being the male nurse who was in charge of the ward when this poor lady was raped and murdered. I think it was originally a student nurse who blew the whistle on the staff drugging the patients and the appalling way the stroke patients were being treated on that ward. Then health care assistants reported the blood on this poor lady and this same male nurse did nothing about it and, due to this, valuable evidence was lost. This is the same male nurse who was involved in patient drugging. What the heck are the police playing at? They should hang their heads in shame, the least this poor lady and her family deserve is justice.

This is unthinkable. I cannot get my head around any of it. How can they possibly close the case?

Anyone with any medical training should read the responses of the band 5 male nurse. Apparently he didn’t think a post menopausal women bleeding from the vagina was anything serious🧐. I would have thought his answers would have been easy to pull apart. The family have not only been let down by the hospital (understatement) but also the complete lack of justice is an abomination.
It’s absolutely sickening. I don’t know how her family will ever cope or find peace knowing what happened to Valerie. She should have been in a place of safety, she should have been surrounded by warmth, compassion, and professionals helping with rehabilitation and the highest level of care following her stroke.

Truly shocking. Matthew Pover has since been struck off for drunk driving and selling zopiclone. He was the nurse in charge. A person of such bad character should be seriously investigated

This is quite disrespectful to the struggles women face in India, distasteful to shoehorn in a little anti bigotry rant using the horrific rape culture towards women in India because of something that happened here. I'd still rather be a woman patient in England than anywhere in India. It can be hard to even get a train in some areas over there without the threat of rape or harassment

Thank you, that's genuinely helpful. I've pretty much giving up all hope of most of my supposed representatives doing anything useful for their constituents!

ironic that the webpage of the hospital has "Caring Safe Respectful" as a banner at the bottom of it.

There are two other things you could do. Either start an online petition yourself which other people can sign or submit your own petition for your MP to present which would then need to be sent to the DHSC. And they HAVE to present it (if they are being truly unresponsive another MP can do this for you too but it's unusual).

Petitions - MPs' Guide to Procedure - UK Parliament

"Some of the nurses I came across there should not have been in a caring profession and were quite nasty."

This hospital is quite local to us and we often used to say some of the nurses there were more Hells Angels than Angels and always a worry if family members had to undergo inpatient treatment. Like Valerie's family we always stayed close for all the hours allowed, but heartbreaking to know this still isn't enough to protect loved ones.

Valerie Kneale was let down in the worst way and deserves justice.

I’m just imagining my stroke chief nurse descending on this ward like the wrath of God. I am as certain as it is possible to be that none of this would happen in the Trust I work for. Not because of better staffing, but because it is possible to fight and change a frankly routinely criminal culture on a ward like this. I wonder what the sister of that ward, then or now, is like.

Horrible there should be cameras at least in the corridors so cameras can be checked for who went where when The poor woman

Absolutely terrifying. That poor woman and her family. And the man who did this is still out there! Who knows how many times he could have done this?

I was treated very badly in hospital recently. I was assaulted, given underdoses, overdoses, drugs intended for someone else. Nothing on this scale but I was so scared for my life that had I been able to walk, I would have got a taxi home and gone to my local hospital. The more I complained, the worse my treatment got.

This has been covered up completely. It's terrifying as she sounded like she was getting better.

That’s one of the worst things I’ve ever read!

This would not be the first or last time this person has done something like this.

Pointless. My MP is SNP, they dont do anything at all. Not one response, no action, fuck all. Just collecting a fat salary and posturing away with his pals.

God this is one of the most upsetting things I have read on here. That poor poor woman, my heart absolutely breaks for her. I just cant believe this can happen even though sadly it clearly does. Just lost for words

From the description they would have been in a horrible state - I’d have thought likely incinerated.

@Themaghag thank you for providing that summary of what has happened so far and for following this case. It seems surprising to me that the BBC can't make the same links you did and provide a more comprehensive article about what has been going on in that stroke ward over the years. It's down to individuals piecing it all together.

https://nursingnotes.co.uk/news/professional/nursing-staff-charged-over-unlawful-sedation-and-ill-treatment-of-hospital-patients/#google_vignette

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-67706765

It’s the same unit (and one of the same staff) where staff were previously jailed for illegally drugging patients and I think stealing ward drugs and ill,treatment. It does make you wonder if this poor woman died after such “ill treatment” by a member of staff but they can’t prove who did it.

Pretty much all comments on mumsnet are stating the obvious but thanks for taking time out from your busy day to make such a pointless comment…..having a bad day / year?

From the BBC report:

By the time the post-mortem examination findings came back, Mrs Kneale's room would have been cleaned and used by other patients, she said.
Clothing the patient wore at the time of her death had also been disposed of by hospital staff.
The delay also meant CCTV footage was not preserved.

They destroyed her clothes? She had relatives at the hospital, couldn't they have given it to them?

I went to find this story on the BBC News App and had to use the search function to find it (presumably it's been filed under North West News) - it doesn't come up as a headline. Shocking.