Mental health patients ‘raped and sexually assaulted’ in NHS care as ‘national scandal’ revealed
Mental health patients have alleged they were raped and sexually assaulted while being treated by the NHS, in what has been described as a “national scandal”.
An investigation by Sky News and The Independent has uncovered nearly 20,000 complaints of sexual assault, abuse and harassment, involving both patients and staff, across more than 30 mental health trusts in England since 2019.
The investigation was sparked by the testimony of Alexis Quinn – a former British youth swimmer whose story is told in the new Sky News podcast Patient 11 – after she escaped from psychiatric care following complaints of sexual assault by male patients.
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In both instances, Alexis’s alleged attackers faced no criminal action.
Multiple patients and their families have come forward to tell their stories.
They include a law graduate who described how she was sexually assaulted by a male staff member before being moved on to a mixed-gender psychiatric unit.
Meanwhile, a mother-of-two said she was subjected to five months of “horrific” sexual abuse at the hands of a male staff member.
“I thought it was just me,” Alexis told Sky News.
“But it’s not just me – there are thousands of people [like me].”
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‘I’m just being traumatised’
In 2011, the Department of Health committed to eradicating mixed-sex care across all its inpatient services.
Despite this, more than 12 years on, Sky News and The Independent has identified hundreds of allegations of rape and sexual assault in mixed-sex wards and shared spaces in NHS England psychiatric care.
Following more than 50 freedom of information requests to NHS England mental health trusts, with 38 responses, we can reveal:
• Nearly 20,000 “sexual safety incidents” were reported on inpatient mental health wards between 2019 and 2023 – with the annual figure rising each year
A sexual safety incident is defined as any unwanted sexual behaviour that makes a person feel uncomfortable or unsafe. This includes rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, comments of a sexual nature or observing sexual behaviour, including exposure to nakedness.
• Nearly 4,000 sexual safety incidents were reported between January and August 2023 – higher than the annual total for both 2019 and 2020
• That trusts are largely failing to apply 2020 government-backed sexual safeguarding protections, with only six authorities demonstrating that they are doing so
A separate FOI request conducted by The Independent revealed:
• More than 800 allegations of sexual assault and rape involving female patients across more than 20 trusts between 2019 and 2023 – only 95 of which were reported to the police
• More than 500 allegations of sexual assault and rape in mixed male and female NHS England psychiatric inpatient settings, across more than 20 trusts
The findings have been described as a “national scandal” by former Victim’s Commissioner Dame Vera Baird.
Meanwhile, Dr Lade Smith, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: “The horrendous findings show that there is still much to do to make sure that patients and staff in mental health trusts are protected from sexual harms at all times.
“It is deeply troubling to see that so few incidents in mental health settings go unreported.”
Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said it was “chilling” that these “horrific” alleged crimes were reported to have taken place in the NHS.
“Very serious questions must urgently be asked of hospital leaders, who have to explain why the vast majority of these incidents were kept from the police,” he added.
“NHS England must explain why so few trusts have implemented sexual safeguarding protections designed to keep patients safe.
“The government must treat this investigation as a wake-up call and act against the soaring number of mixed-sex wards in the NHS today.”
‘He started to touch me on my breasts’
In 2012, Alexis – a mother who worked as a teacher – entered care following the death of her brother.
Undiagnosed with autism, she complained of a sexual assault by a male patient at Kent’s Littlebrook hospital on Christmas Day in 2013 after she was placed on an all-male ward.
Alexis Quinn was a British youth swimmer. Pic: Alexis Quinn
“I was in such a bad way… it was Christmas Day and I wasn’t with my little girl,” she said.
“He pressed me up against the door and lifted my top up. And he started to touch me on my breasts and then pulled my trousers down.
“All I could hear was his breathing and everything was slow and really loud and [I remember] not being able to move and being stuck.”
In a letter to her family in early 2014, Kent and Medway NHS Trust said Alexis “should not have been admitted as the sole female patient on a ward with other male patients” and committed to her safeguarding.
But just months later in 2014, Alexis made a second complaint after being moved to yet another mixed-gender care setting at St Martin’s Hospital in Kent.
The University of Edinburgh graduate said: “I was getting some treatment in a treatment room with a female nurse.
“I’d just come in from a run so I was wearing running shorts and a running vest top and a male patient came into the treatment room and started groping me on my breasts and on my bum.”
Addressing the second complaint, Kent and Medway NHS Trust said it was “unfortunate that incidents like these occur due to the acute nature of the patients admitted” to the ward.
Alexis’s alleged attackers faced no criminal action because they were deemed “not to have the capacity to go through a police investigation,” according to her mother Linda.
Alexis Quinn says she suffered a black eye as a result of being restrained in 2015. Pic: Alexis Quinn
Kent and Medway NHS Trust told Sky News it has eradicated mixed wards, adding: “We continue to offer out sincerest apologies to Alexis for the unacceptable behaviour she experienced when she was in our care.”
Sectioned under the Mental Health Act and legally detained, Alexis spent almost four years in largely locked-in care environments, including the now-closed Milton Park Therapeutic Campus in Bedfordshire, where she said she had to shower in front of male staff members.
‘I felt sick… and I just cried’
Like Alexis, autism patient Rivkah Grant said she found herself exposed to mixed-gender NHS mental health inpatient settings when battling depression.
The 34-year-old law graduate, originally from Enfield, north London, said she was sexually assaulted by a male healthcare worker while on a female ward at Chase Farm Hospital in 2016.
“There was one staff member and he seemed really nice and supportive,” she told Sky News and The Independent.
“I didn’t realise at the time that this was a bad thing – that he was in my room when I was by myself in the night with the door shut.”
She described being sexually assaulted by the staff member, saying: “He said to me that I must promise not to tell anyone, [or] he’d lose his job.
“I felt sick and I suddenly felt it all – what has happened? And I just cried.”
Autism patient Rivkah Grant said she was sexually assaulted by a male healthcare worker
Following the incident, Rivkah said she was moved to a mixed-sex ward, despite having told staff she’d been sexually assaulted.
Her attacker was convicted in June 2017 following a police investigation.
‘There is no safety in mental health hospitals’
North London Mental Health Partnership, which now runs Chase Farm Hospital, said the safety of its users is the top priority and that it is “deeply sorry” for what happened to Rivkah.
It said it has since strengthened its safeguarding process.
“I thought I was in a safe place,” Rivkah said. “And you believe you when you’re in a hospital, you should be safe. You’re in a place where there’s 24/7 care.
“And unfortunately, obviously, I’ve learned that there is no safety in mental health hospitals.
“I know I’m not the only person who has been through it.”
In 2020, after the Care Quality Commission raised national concerns over sexual abuse in mental health services, the NHS set up new guidelines under its “sexual safety collaboratives”.
Just six trusts have provided evidence they have met the collaboratives’ guidelines, in response to Sky News’ FOI requests.
‘He’s a sexual predator’
In 2015, Stephanie Tutty sought help from Essex mental health services while dealing with the trauma of a rape she suffered in her youth.
While under the care of Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, the 28-year old mother-of-two said she suffered repeated sexual abuse by a male staff member over a five-month period.
Stephanie Tutty said she suffered repeated sexual abuse by a male staff member. Pic: Stephanie Tutty
After a two-year investigation, she said she was told by police in 2017 that her case could not proceed due to the low likelihood of conviction.
She said: “What happened with [the alleged abuser] will always have a lasting impact on me, even more so than the first rape that made me unwell in the first place.
“He is a predator, with no other words for him – he’s a sexual predator.”
Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust told Sky News and The Independent that reports like Stephanie’s are immediately referred to the safeguarding team and fully investigated.
Charlie Brooker, honorary professor of criminology and mental health at London’s Royal Holloway University, has examined the relationship between sexual assault and mental illness.
He told Sky News and The Independent there should now be an inquiry into sexual safety in mental health wards.
Professor Charlie Brooker has called for an inquiry into sexual safety in mental health wards
He said: “If an inquiry was set up to look at sexual safety in mental health inpatient wards – because in my opinion, it should be – it would be fascinating to see how many people came forward and wanted to give evidence.
“I won’t be at all surprised if it wasn’t several thousand.”
What has the NHS and the government said?
In a statement, NHS England said: “We are taking action to ensure the safety of patients and staff, including rolling out better reporting mechanisms, training and support as part of the NHS’s new Sexual Safety Charter.
“NHS England has advised all Trusts and local health systems to appoint a domestic abuse and sexual violence lead to support patients and staff to report incidents and access support, with more than 300 now in place.”
NHS England went on to cite its commitment to the 2020 government-backed sexual safety protections, despite only six trusts demonstrating their application.
A Department of Health spokesperson said: “Sexual violence or misconduct of any kind is unacceptable and has no place in the NHS, and NHS organisations have a responsibility to protect both staff and patients.
“We are working closely with the NHS to ensure anyone receiving treatment in a mental health facility receives safe, high-quality care, and is looked after with dignity and respect.”
UK
What women in prison miss most, the prison schemes helping them rebuild their lives and why fewer may end up going to jail
In a workshop in the far corner of the Styal prison estate, glass, plastic and metal are being smashed to the beat of pumping music.
Women at workstations are dismantling electronics with the energy of gym enthusiasts.
TVs and laptops, discarded at local recycling centres across England, have ended up here, on the edge of Wilmslow, Cheshire.
But amid the whiz of drills, the crunch of screens being separated from their plastic casings and the clatter of electronic boards ripped out and chucked in big bins, something else is being recycled – women’s lives.
“You get a lot of frustration out, because obviously a lot of girls have got a lot of anger, you know,” says Joanne*, who is serving time for drug offences.
She has joined this activity not for the £10 per 70 TVs she breaks apart, but because the programme – called Recycling Lives – could give her the skills and the support to keep her out of jail in the future.
Only 12% of women are employed six months after leaving prison, compared to 25% of men. In the general population employment levels between men and women are 78% to 72%.
Ex-prisoners with a job are far less likely to re-offend. So, women prisoners are at a disadvantage. Often a man is connected to the crime they committed.
“For 90% of the women in prison, there’s always a male involved in why they’ve committed crime, it is the case with me as well,” says Joanne, who tells me she was pressured into dealing drugs by her partner.
Official Ministry of Justice statistics say that at least 60% of women in prison are victims of domestic violence and most will have experienced some form of abuse as a child.
Many, too, are mothers and they feel the guilt of separation every day. Joanne says of her son: “It’s my sister picking him up from school, not me.
“It’s my sister there on Christmas day, not me. Birthdays, all the special occasions. It’s heart-breaking.
“People think prison is easy. You are ripped away from your family and your children. It’s not easy.”
As if in illustration, the glass cracks on an iPad, as she peels it away with her screwdriver.
Official figures say there are around 3,500 women in prison and it is estimated that about half are mothers.
‘I’m trying to give them a future’
The workshop manager Yvonne Grime knows this all too well. A former serial offender herself, she’s the first former inmate at Styal to now hold a set of keys to the prison.
“The biggest thing for me [as a prisoner] was leaving my children,” she says, “and I still carry that guilt round, but I have come through it.”
Part of her redemption is to help the women in her workshop. The Recycling Lives programme transformed her life, and she wants to give back.
She says: “I’m trying to give them a future. I’m trying to give you some hope that they can that they can change.
“Get the children back, find a job, find a home. There is light at the end of the tunnel.”
Her work is part manager and part mentor. “When I first started, I thought I’m just going to come in and run this workshop,” she said.
“I didn’t realise I had to be their mum, their dad, their brother, their sister, the doctor, the nurse, the everything that comes with it.
“If I had a salary for every one of those professions, I’d be absolutely minted.”
Read more:
Justice secretary’s ‘ultimate ambition’ to close women’s prisons
Ex-prisoner shares what life’s like in a women’s jail
Yvonne Grime says ‘there is light at the end of the tunnel’ for female prisoners
Styal isn’t what you expect a prison to look like.
Inside the high fences and barbed wire are sixteen austere red-brick Victorian houses.
Once an orphanage, they’re now the prison’s accommodation blocks.
Ted the prison cat, wanders from block to block, and has already served several of his nine lives in the compound.
Along with recycling TV sets, women can learn to guide and drive forklift trucks.
They are quick with their tools, spinning through one appliance after another with remarkable and methodical destructive pace.
But the real advantage of the programme is that it continues on the outside. Only 6% of people who go through Recycling Lives go on to commit further crime. The general reoffending rate is 25%.
In a warehouse in Preston, former inmates are involved in recycling food from supermarkets and farms, then sent to foodbanks.
Here we meet Naomi Winter, who – three years since being released from jail – is now a manager at the food distribution depot.
The hardest thing about prison for her too was being separated from a child.
“I was put in prison when my baby is only three months old,” she said.
“So, it was like losing an arm, like losing a piece of my DNA.
“I still woke up for night feeds in the night and stuff like that.”
She says there wasn’t the mental health provision inside of prison to help her deal with post-natal depression, and she spent way too much time alone with her thoughts.
She was in and out of prison for drug offences and violence eight times by the age of 30 and first jailed aged 15, for breaching an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO).
She feels even short prison sentences can ruin lives, and says: “You take women who’s robbed a block of cheese to feed the child.
“They put them in prison for 28 days. They take the home, take the kids, they lose the family, and they get out with nothing. You just create a criminal right there.
“You’ve just created a woman who’s got nothing to lose. You’re also releasing them with a sleeping bag in a tent and telling them to go and sleep in the woods.”
Naomi Winter feels even short prison sentences can ruin women’s lives
Alternatives to custody
The government recognises that prison isn’t working for many of the women who end up there.
It’s why, with women being mostly non-violent offenders and serving short sentences, the government is setting up a Women’s Justice Board to look at reducing the number who go into prison with alternatives such as community sentences and intervention projects tackling the root causes of re-offending.
The Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, told Sky News: “For many women, prison isn’t working. Most women in prisons are victims themselves. Over half are mothers, with a prison sentence separating parent and child.
“That’s why I am establishing a new Women’s Justice Board, tasked with reducing the number of women in prison by exploring alternatives to custody for female offenders.”
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Chief Executive of Recycling Lives, Alasdair Jackson says: “There are certain things we all need as human beings: One is a place to live, one is a job to be able to pay for that place to live and then a support network.
“But there are a lot more factors that women have to contend with; there’s children, there is maybe domestic abuse, there’s everything that goes on around that, but when you give people a chance, when you give people the skills that they need, it is life-changing.
“And when you change a woman’s life, you are often changing the family’s life and the children’s life.”
Alasdair Jackson says ‘when you change a woman’s life, you are often changing the family’s life’
Prison is supposed to be part punishment, part repair job. But there are limited programmes like Recycling Lives, and for many women entering jail currently, the only recycling is back into criminality.
* names have been changed
The world’s oldest man has died at the age of 112, the Guinness World Records has announced.
John Tinniswood was born in Liverpool on 26 August 1912, the year the Titanic sank. He was a lifelong Liverpool FC fan, born just 20 years after the club was founded.
He died on Monday at a care home in Southport, Guinness World Records said.
In a statement, his family said: “His last day was surrounded by music and love.
“John always liked to say thank you. So on his behalf, thanks to all those who cared for him over the years, including his carers at the Hollies Care Home, his GPs, district nurses, occupational therapist and other NHS staff.”
In April 2024, aged 111, he became the world’s oldest living man, following the death of 114-year-old Juan Vicente Perez from Venezuela.
Mr Tinniswood was born in Liverpool on 26 August 1912, the year the Titanic sank. Pic: Guinness World Records
Mr Tinniswood’s key advice for staying healthy was to practice moderation. “If you drink too much or you eat too much or you walk too much; if you do too much of anything, you’re going to suffer eventually.”
But when asked the secret to his longevity after turning 112 in August, Mr Tinniswood put it all down to “just luck”.
“I can’t think of any special secrets I have,” he said. “I was quite active as a youngster, I did a lot of walking.
“Whether that had something to do with it, I don’t know. But to me, I’m no different [to anyone]. No different at all.
“I just take it in my stride like anything else, why I’ve lived that long I have no idea at all.”
Mr Tinniswood was named the world’s oldest man in April this year.
Pic: Guinness World Records
Apart from a portion of battered fish and chips every Friday, Mr Tinniswood did not follow any particular diet, and said earlier this year he felt “no different” turning 112.
“I don’t feel that age, I don’t get excited over it. That’s probably why I’ve reached it.
“I just take it in my stride like anything else, why I’ve lived that long I have no idea at all.”
He lived through both world wars and was a Second World War veteran – having worked in an administrative role for the Army Pay Corps.
In addition to accounts and auditing, his work involved logistical tasks such as locating stranded soldiers and organising food supplies. He went on to work as an accountant for Shell and BP before retiring in 1972.
He met his wife, Blodwen, at a dance in Liverpool. They were together for 44 years before Blodwen died in 1986.
Mr Tinniswood was the oldest surviving male Second World War veteran.
Pic: Guinness World Records
Mr Tinniswood is survived by his daughter Susan, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, and lived to be the fourth-oldest British man in recorded history.
His family added: “John had many fine qualities. He was intelligent, decisive, brave, calm in any crisis, talented at maths and a great conversationalist.
“John moved to the Hollies rest home just before his 100th birthday and his kindness and enthusiasm for life were an inspiration to the care home staff and his fellow residents.”
The oldest ever man was Jiroemon Kimura from Japan, who lived to the age of 116 years 54 days and died in 2013.
The world’s oldest living woman, and oldest living person, is Japan’s 116-year-old Tomiko Itooka.
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