'I was so numb I couldn't even cry': Daughter blasts 'Gestapo' social services as they bundle mother, 86, out of family home



Placing a tea-time meal of beans-on-toast in front of her frail 86-year-old mother Betty, Ros Figg glanced out of the dining room window to see two squad cars and a police van pull up.

Thinking there must be a major incident going on nearby, she pulled back the net curtains hoping to see what had prompted such an impressive show of police manpower.

One of the officers was carrying a battering ram. Was there a criminal on the loose?

Heartless: Betty Figg, 86, covered with a blanket, is wheeled away by Coventry social services

A suspected terrorist in hiding? A secret drugs den, perhaps?

None of the above, as it would turn out. The person they'd come for, armed with a warrant, was poor old Betty - a once sprightly great-grandmother who'd recently succumbed to dementia.

'I couldn't believe my eyes when four police officers, flanking two social workers and a doctor, walked towards my house,' says 55-year-old Ros.

'One of the police officers was holding a red battering ram and I thought: "What on earth does he need that for?"

'It's the sort of thing they'd use to raid terrorists, not people like us.

'I was so frightened I didn't want to let them in so I leaned out of the window and asked them what they wanted.



'One of the social workers said a doctor had come to examine my mother. When I opened the door a warrant, giving them the right to search for and remove my mother, was put in my hand.

Happier times: Rosalind Figg says she was made to feel like 'an enemy of the state' after trying to care for her mother, who has dementia, at home



'My poor mum, when she saw the policemen kept asking: "What have we done wrong?" and I was desperately trying to stay calm and reassure her, saying: "We've done nothing wrong, Mum."

'I was shaking with shock. I was so numb I couldn't even cry.



'Two policemen remained stationed at the front door the whole time. Did they think we were going to do a runner?



'My mother has a wheelchair - she can't even walk.'

And so on Monday, with neighbours hanging out of the windows to see what was going on, Betty - who was diagnosed with dementia last June - was wheeled by social workers from her daughter's house in Coventry to a waiting car and taken away.

The almost Orwellian operation was captured on a very sad series of pictures - one showing a blanket thrown over Betty's head by social workers to shield her from photographers - which have since been published in newspapers, prompting a public outcry.

Betty was then returned to the residential home which Ros removed her from last Saturday, believing her Mum would be better off in her care.

Butts Croft House in Coventry, where Mrs Figg was receiving care

Social services had opposed Ros's request to care for her mother at home, arguing that the level of care she could offer was not sufficient, and swung into action with the full force of the law when Ros defied them and took her home.

'I didn't try to stop them taking my mother because I didn't want to panic and upset her,' says Ros.



'I felt so guilty that I had brought this on her, but also complete disbelief.



'I told her: "Don't worry, Mum, I'll be seeing you soon." Then I watched from the window as they threw a blanket over her head to stop people taking photographs.

Rosalind Figg said her mother perked up after they took her out of the home

'How could they do that to an old and confused lady? As soon as they put the blanket on her head, she threw it off again and I thought: "Good on you, Mum."

'They were so keen to get her away from me that they reversed into a bollard, leaving it bent.

'I still can't believe it's happened. I was made to feel like an enemy of the state rather than a daughter who just wants to do the best for her mother.

'I can't believe these Gestapo tactics can be allowed to happen in our society.

'After they'd gone, I read the warrant they'd left behind, and I felt even more upset. I was insulted.

'It said Mum was being removed under Section 135 of the Mental Health Act 1983 because she was at risk of neglect or ill-treatment, with no evidence to support that at all. I've never been in trouble with the police.

'The doctor took her blood pressure, which was normal, said her skin was a bit dry and said she had some bruises on her leg.



'But they were marks which had been there before she came home. As far as I know, she wasn't on any medication at the home.

'What kind of country are we living in where social workers appear to be quite capable of leaving children with parents who abuse them, but not elderly women with the children who love them?

'What they have done is a complete travesty of human rights.'

Ros, a mother of four sons aged between 21 and 36, still looks shaken by these events.



Softly-spoken, she shows me round her terraced home, pointing out the wheelchair ramp she had put in at the front door and the den she turned into a downstairs bedroom in preparation for her mother's arrival.

On the bed is a mattress with sensors to alert Ros should her mother get up in the night and leave the room.



All of this was considered by social services to be completely inadequate.

Ros was yesterday consulting with solicitors to see what legal action to take. She also visited her mother, taking a legal representative with her.

Ros says: 'It was lovely to see Mum, but I could see immediately that she'd lost her sparkle again.



'She told me she missed me and asked if she could come home again.'

Ros is convinced she can look after her, having given up her job running a pottery shop and also having had experience as a carer, including looking after people with dementia.

She is supported by her partner of 12 years, Chris, an electrician, her sons and older sister Marianne, a qualified nurse, who all want to see Betty back with her family.



Ros shows me photographs of her mother from happier days, surrounded by the family she adored.

Even after Betty's husband Brian died eight years ago, aged 80, the week before their 50th wedding anniversary, she remained a sprightly, independent woman living alone in the marital home.

Last May, however, Ros - who used to pop in every day to check on her mother - started to notice that Betty was becoming increasingly confused.

'She burnt food and did odd things like putting milk in the kettle,' says Ros.



'I took her to the GP and he referred her to a memory clinic. That was when I asked if she could have help at home, and, perhaps, respite care in a home.'

On May 25 last year, however, Betty's condition suddenly deteriorated following the tragic death of her 25-year-old nephew, Gareth, in a road accident.

On June 9, she was diagnosed with dementia and the following week was admitted to University Hospital, Walsgrave, after doctors became concerned about her legs, which had started to swell, and her fragile mental state.

On June 29 she suffered a fall in hospital, breaking her hip, which required an operation.

In August, when she was due to be discharged, social services were called in to assess her needs.



When it was suggested that Betty go to Butts Croft House nursing home in Corley, Coventry, because she was unable to return to her own home, Ros agreed.

'I thought she was going for respite and assessment, and no one told me otherwise,' says Ros.



'I never for one moment thought it might be permanent. When I first visited my mother there, it looked very nice, newly built, and for the first six weeks we were happy for her to stay there.'

Ros, who has power of attorney over her mother's affairs, paid the £485 weekly home fees from Betty's savings, topped up by her state allowances and pension.

'There are a lot of elderly people who are happy at Butts Croft House, as are their relatives, and for some people it's the right environment,' says Ros.

'But I became convinced that Mum would be happier at home with me.



'Betty had cared for her mother, Maud, when she was dying from cancer and all my instincts told me I should be caring for my mum, too.

'When Mum first went to the home, she was in a room with less serious dementia sufferers, but then she was moved to a room for those with more advanced dementia.

'There was a big hedge outside the window, so tall you couldn't see the sky, and I didn't like to think of her sitting in electric light all day. She had very little stimulation.

'There were some very good carers at the home, but no carer can ever know someone as well as their family and I was upset when I found out one had assumed that Mum, who has her own teeth, was wearing dentures and had tried to take them out.

'Sometimes when I visited Mum her toothbrush was dry and brown because it hadn't been used.'

Last November, Ros gave notice of her intention to remove Betty, but their plans to take her home had to be abandoned when the family was told Betty could not leave until social services had assessed her.

Ros - who'd started to make changes to her home to accommodate her mother which met, she claims, the social services' standards - was frustrated.



'She hadn't been sectioned. We thought she had gone into the home as a temporary measure,' says Ros.

'Meetings with social workers were postponed. Then they started talking about the Mental Health Act and how my mother was very vulnerable.



'No one ever said to me outright that I couldn't care for my mum.'

In February, Betty was admitted to hospital with an oral infection and Ros decided then that she wanted her mother discharged into her care once she was well.



Instead, after consultations between the hospital, social services and doctors, Betty was put back into the care home without informing the family of the decision.

'When she returned to the home, I went to see her and found her mouth caked in blood,' says Ros.



'She was complaining of feeling hungry. She'd been given a dry beef sandwich, when her mouth was still infected and sore, and she just couldn't eat it.

'I said to her: "Mum, you are not doing very well are you?", and she said: "No."

When I said: "What shall we do?", she replied: "Come with you?"'

Ros kept pressing social services for the assessment, thinking they could agree a care package to meet her mother's needs at home.

'In the end I was told she needed round-the-clock care which would cost me thousands of pounds, and it would be better if she stayed in the home,' says Ros.



'I was so angry. I thought: "Right, I'll just go and take her out. They can't stop me from looking after my own mother."



'I was worried about how I would cope, but I was going to have carers to help me.'

So at 4.30pm last Saturday, Ros, accompanied by her sister and her partner's sister-in-law, who is also a nurse, arrived at Butts Croft House to take her home.

'We went into her room and quietly started packing because we didn't want to make a fuss,' says Ros.



'As we were leaving, we told the manager we were taking her out. When she asked if we were bringing her back, and we said no, she told us if Mum wasn't back by 6.30pm she'd call the police.

'When we put Mum in the car, her eyes lit up and she said: "Ooh isn't this nice." She really perked up for the first time in ages.'

Ros says she called the police to check she wasn't breaking the law, and claims she was told it was a civil matter which wouldn't involve them.



But that night two PCs arrived at Ros's home at a quarter to midnight.

'They didn't seem to know why they were here,' says Ros.



'I opened the door to Mum's room to show them Mum curled up asleep, and then they left, apologising for bothering us.'

Two days later, however, the police - complete with battering ram - returned as back-up to social services to take Betty away.

Coventry City Council said this week that the police were only called in after an initial attempt to gain entry by social workers was refused.

But Ros says: 'Neighbours told me two official-looking people had knocked on the door in the afternoon, but I was in the garden and didn't hear them. I didn't refuse entry.

'In the two days Mum was home, I'd seen a real improvement in her.



'Her bed sores were healing and she'd started to laugh and chat with neighbours over a cup of tea.



'All I want is my mum back home. I've done nothing wrong - unless you call wanting to care for your own mother wrong.'

The nursing home declined to comment on the case and Coventry City Council said it had exercised its statutory powers as a 'last resort'.

Yesterday, Colin Green, Coventry City Council's acting director of community services, told the Mail the actions taken to remove Betty to 'a place of safety' were appropriate in the circumstances.



He said that social workers and health professionals had all agreed that Betty had a very high level of need which was best served in Butts Croft House.

He added: 'This situation could have been resolved quite differently had Rosalind Figg not removed her mother from the residential care home without the appropriate arrangements.'

A spokesman for West Midlands police said: 'Police were asked to assist social services to remove an elderly woman to a place of safety.



'A warrant was granted and an enforcer was taken in order to gain access to the property if needed. The enforcer was not used.'

Removed to 'a place of safety'?

Those words must feel like a dagger through the heart of Ros Figg. No wonder she feels this week's shameful events were a travesty.

