03/12/2015
A care home company has today admitted corporate manslaughter over the death of an 86-year-old woman.Ivy Atkin died on 22 November 2012, shortly after being moved from Autumn Grange care home in Sherwood Rise.
Today (3 December 2015), in the first corporate manslaughter conviction for a care home setting in England, Sherwood Rise Ltd, who owned Autumn Grange, pleaded guilty to the corporate manslaughter charge at Nottingham Crown Court. One of the company directors, also pleaded guilty to gross negligence manslaughter, in connection with Ivy’s death – also the first conviction of its kind.
The home closed in 2012 after its council contract was suspended.
The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed this was the first care home company to be charged under the Corporate Manslaughter Act. The act came into force in 2008 to clarify the criminal liabilities of companies where serious failures in health and safety result in a death.
Sentencing will take place on 5 February 2016.
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