The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
South Holland District Council tax payers are footing the bill for prosecuting a care home owner following three separate deaths.
But the authority is battling to recoup the money it spent on bringing to court a company which ran a care home where the three residents had died after leaving the building in 2012.
Apex Care Ltd was fined £105,000, reduced to £70,000 for a guilty plea at Lincoln Crown Court in January.
It admitted breaching Health and Safety legislation at The Bungalow Care home, Park Road, Spalding.
But the court did not force the company to pay the prosecution costs of the council which left a £105,768 shortfall.
The council has written to the Ministry of Justice asking how the shortfall could be met given that it was acting on a breach of a duty of care.
It has also raised the issue with Sajid Javid, the government’s Communities Secretary
“South Holland District Council could not just stand by and allow further vulnerable residents to come to harm. The home failed to learn from previous incidents and take appropriate action,” said Anthony Casson, portfolio holder to public protection.
“Families within the district need to have assurances that their loved ones will be safe when they put the care of the most vulnerable into the hands of others, in most cases this can be assured.
“However, in situations of this nature they need to know that their council will act and companies like Apex Care Ltd will be held accountable before court,” he added.
A spokesman for the council said most other prosecuting authorities such as the Health and Safety Executive and the Crown Prosecution Service, are funded by the government, but the council is receiving less cash from Whitehall and can ill afford to lose more.
“Costs should never be a material factor in deciding whether to proceed with a prosecution nor should a price be put on the care of a loved one. However, despite the defence legal team not raising any objections to the council’s costs and our legal team being confident of a significant recovery of costs, as is common in these types of prosecutions, this regrettably wasn’t the case,” said Coun Casson.
“The council has received legal advice that there is no legal right of appeal or ability to seek the costs in the future.
“It doesn’t seem right that local tax payers should be paying for this.”
The legal bill comes while the district council is looking to make savings of £1.05m by April 2020 as funding from central government decreases.
A council spokesman said gathering evidence and details for each of the three separate deaths to prepare a court case had taken a huge amount of work as it was not clear at the outset that Apex Care Ltd would plead guilty.
