Home manager fined £4k after two drowned on lake

A care home manager has been ordered to pay £4,000 after two people in wheelchairs drowned when their boat capsized on a day out.

Father-of-four Alexander Wood, 43, and Alison Tilsley, 63, died and Kate Dart was seriously injured when the wheelyboat they were in overturned at Roadford Lake Activity Centre.

Janice Sowden, 60, who as registered manager was responsible for health and safety, previously pleaded guilty to failing to provide safe care and treatment that resulted in avoidable harm.

Exeter Magistrates' Court heard she failed to assess the risks of the outing in June 2022, which involved taking six people, all wheelchair users, from Burdon Grange Care Home to the centre near Okehampton.

James Marsland, prosecuting, said: "A wheelyboat, ie, a boat designed to carry wheelchair users, had been hired from the centre for a trip on the lake.

"Alexander Wood and Alison Tilsley, in particular, were strapped into electric wheelchairs without any means of being released from them."

The court heard the vessel started to take on water within minutes and soon capsized.

Marsland said both were "drowned by the weight of their wheelchairs" which pulled them under the water.

He said: "Miss Sowden did not undertake any risk assessment in relation to the needs of the service users… Nor did she ensure that any such risk assessment did take place.

"This is a classic case of serious negligence."

Sowden, of Beaworthy, Devon, had been appointed registered manager at the home in 2016 and was described as having previously been "caring" and "diligent" in her work.

However, the court heard a "cultural complacency" developed in the home in the run-up to the incident and standards had slipped.

Judge Stuart Smith said the facility had been home to "extremely vulnerable" service users and it should have been obvious to Sowden that health and safety assessments needed to be completed before the trip.

He added that insufficient consideration was also given to the capabilities of staff members, one of whom could not swim, and described Sowden as "blase" about risk.

The court heard Sowden went on to attempt to fabricate evidence of health and safety considerations following the incident, creating a fake checklist for the boat trip to "deceive" investigators.

On Tuesday, Sowden was ordered to pay a total of £4,090, including a £190 government surcharge and £2,000 as a contribution to prosecution costs.

Addressing Sowden, Smith said: "This case is nothing short of devastating… the lives of two much-loved residents, Alexander Wood and Alison Tilsley, have been lost.

"This was in no small part a direct consequence of your cavalier attitude to good health and safety practice.

"This incident has caused immeasurable grief to the families of Alex and Alison."

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