Annette and Kevin Maxwell were nervous about sending their son Jonah to a residential home for children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send). Jonah has severe autism – he is non-verbal, has epilepsy and behavioural problems and needs round-the-clock care. He’s beautiful, but he is very, very complicated,” said Annette.
Then, in 2016, the charity that ran the home collapsed and the centre was acquired by the Aurora Group, which runs more than 30 Send schools and is owned by Octopus, an investment management and real estate company. The Maxwells, who live in Bath, noticed a change almost immediately. They said the food quality went downhill, an overnight nursing position was cut and they began to have concerns about Jonah’s wellbeing.
Whenever he came home to visit he seemed very tired. But every time we spoke to management and staff, they would always reassure us that everything was OK,” said Annette. At this point, the Aurora Group was being paid £292,000 a year by their local authority to care for Jonah.
The company was expanding rapidly by acquiring several established providers to become one of the UK’s largest specialist education and care operators. Then, in 2019, it was announced that St Christopher’s was being closed down by Ofsted after serious allegations of child cruelty came to light. Vulnerable children had to move out at short notice, their belongings hastily packed into black bin bags.
They were sent across the country to new placements. The police began an investigation into alleged child cruelty and safeguarding concerns and this concluded after two years without any criminal charges being brought. The Maxwells were told by police there had been allegations involving Jonah.
In one incident, he was said to have been roughly grabbed and shoved into his room by a staff member. They also found out a carer had allegedly been waking him up every two hours through the night to go to the toilet to avoid having to clean soiled sheets, which police said could be classified as child cruelty. I really, really regret that I didn’t do more,” said Annette.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
