Amy El-Keria, 14, was left unsupervised at Ticehurst House in East Sussex despite history of suicide attempts

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The Priory, the private mental healthcare group, faces a multimillion-pound fine for breaching health and safety laws after a 14-year-old girl with a history of suicide attempts died in its care.

Amy El-Keria, who was treated at its Ticehurst House psychiatric hospital in East Sussex, died in November 2012, three months after being admitted. A criminal investigation was launched by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

The London-based company indicated a guilty plea at Brighton magistrates court to a charge under health and safety laws of being an employer failing to discharge its duty to ensure people were not exposed to risk.

The magistrates court heard the company would be admitting the offence formally at a crown court sentencing hearing next month in front of a judge with the power to impose an unlimited fine.

The company had a turnover of £134m for the year ending 2016 and the starting point for the fine would be £2.4m, said the prosecutor, Sarah Le Fevre.

The teenager was an NHS-funded patient in the Priory’s care. Le Fevre told the court Amy had a known and recent history of suicide attempts which continued during her time there. She was left with unsupervised access and a means to carry out another attempt, the court heard.

The HSE investigation concluded that “procedures for the management of ligature risk had not resulted in effective measures”, Le Fevre said. An inquest in 2016 heard neglect contributed to her death, finding she had died accidentally of unintended consequences of a deliberate act.

The company is expected to be sentenced at Lewes crown court on 6 February.

Responding to the plea, Amy’s mother, Tania El-Keria, said: “Amy was my dearly loved youngest daughter, a sister, niece and granddaughter with her whole life ahead of her.”

In a statement through the charity Inquest, she said it had taken “six long years” for the company to be brought to court. “The only thing that has kept me going is to achieve justice for Amy and to stop other families going through the torture we have endured. Today is a huge step forward achieving this. The guilty plea is a bitter but long-awaited acknowledgement from the Priory of their criminal failure.”

The Priory Group said in a statement: “We are truly sorry that this very sad incident occurred and extend our deepest sympathies to Amy’s family. We continue to invest significantly in improving safety at Ticehurst. The hospital is making strong progress under new leadership and continues to be rated ‘good’ in all areas by the CQC,” the health and social care regulator.

Victoria McNally, a senior caseworker at Inquest, said the family had been “failed by a system that placed Amy in the care of a private company, now exposed as operating criminally inadequate standards.

“The government must now review whether the Priory is fit to receive such significant public expenditure for the provision of children’s specialist mental health care.”