G Field

[Artur Nadolny @ArturNadol7566]

POST OFFICE BANKRUPTED A MAN FOR ASKING FOR HELP 91 TIMES

Lee Castleton spent 9 years in the RAF, then worked as a stockbroker in the City. In 2003 he and his wife decided they wanted a slower life for their two young kids. They sold their home and bought a small Post Office branch in Bridlington, on the seafront.

Within a year the dream job turned into a nightmare. His accounts started showing losses that made no sense. So he did the responsible thing and called the Horizon helpline. Then he called it again. And again. 91 times in 12 weeks, begging someone to explain where the money was going.

Nobody could tell him. The Post Office's answer to being told 91 times that their own system was broken was to audit him, suspend him, and demand he pay back 25,000 pounds he never touched.

Castleton had no money left for a lawyer so he represented himself in the High Court, alone, against an organisation with a government sized legal budget. He lost. The Post Office then chased him for 321,000 pounds in legal costs and bankrupted him.

That is the reward for reporting a fault 91 times. Bankruptcy.

The fallout went well beyond the shop. His kids were bullied at school. His daughter was spat at because people in town assumed her dad was a thief. His wife's health suffered under the strain. All because a computer system got the maths wrong and nobody at the top wanted to admit it.

In 2019 Castleton was one of over 550 former postmasters who won a group settlement of 58 million pounds. He personally received 20,000 pounds, a rounding error next to what the case cost him. He was even locked out of a mediation scheme the Post Office ran for people who believed they had been wrongly pursued.

Years later former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells told the Horizon IT Inquiry under oath that Castleton's treatment was unforgivable. She also said she had likely signed off on the 300,000 pound bill that ruined him. Unforgivable is one word for it. There are others.

Castleton is now suing the @PostOffice and @fujitsu_uk for up to 8 million pounds, arguing the original 2007 judgment against him was obtained by fraud. In May 2026 the Court of Appeal ruled his case should be heard as one trial instead of being split into pieces designed to bury it in cost and delay. A small win. Nearly two decades late.

He wanted a quieter life running a post office by the sea. Instead he became one of the clearest examples of what happens when an institution would rather bankrupt an innocent man than admit its software was broken.

Sources @BBCNews @lawsocgazette @ComputerWeekly and others

[Artur Nadolny @ArturNadol7566]

15 CARE HOMES SHUT DOWN BECAUSE ONE WHISTLEBLOWER REFUSED TO STAY QUIET

You're an adult with learning disabilities living in a care home in Devon. At night, instead of a bed, you get put in an empty room. No heating. No bed either, just an inflatable mattress on the floor and an armchair. And a camera watching you the whole time.

That was Veilstone care home in Buckland Brewer, near Bideford. Run by a company called Atlas Project Team Ltd. The man in charge was Paul Hewitt. He'd actually sold the business back in 2006 but stuck around and kept running the show anyway.

Here's the part that really gets me. In 2009 and 2010, inspectors from the Care Quality Commission visited a dozen Atlas homes and wrote them glowing reports. Great job, well done, gold stars all round. Meanwhile residents were being locked in cold rooms overnight like it was some kind of punishment.

A whistleblower tried to raise the alarm in 2011. And what did the regulator do with that information? Passed it along to the local council and moved on. It took a second whistleblower going straight to the police that same year before anyone actually bothered to check properly.

When they finally did check, it wasn't pretty. Residents had been shut in that room over 1000 times. Left for hours with barely any food or water. No telly, no furniture, nothing to do but sit there in the cold. Prosecutors later called it organised and systematic abuse, which is a very polite way of describing what happened.

All 15 Atlas homes across Devon, Hampshire and Berkshire got shut down in 2012. Police launched Operation Baddeck. By the time it went through the courts, 22 people had been charged with 86 offences between them, including conspiracy to falsely imprison and conspiracy to ill treat vulnerable adults. The home manager, Jolyon Marshall, got 28 months. His wife was convicted too. Thirteen people in total.

Reporting restrictions meant the public couldn't even find out the full story until years later, once all the trials had finished.

CQC eventually said much has changed since 2011. Good to know, though it took two whistleblowers, a police investigation and years of court cases to get there.

This is exactly why whistleblowers matter. Nobody else was checking. Nobody else noticed. One person refused to stay quiet and that's the only reason any of this came out at all.

SOURCES: @BBCNews @johnpringdns

[Diana Abbotts 😷💙 This too shall pass… @Diana_abbs]

Long ago, when I was young, there were convalescent homes/hospitals where patients went when they were well enough to be discharged from hospital, leaving beds free, but not yet strong enough to cope on their own at home.
This wasn’t such a bad idea….
#socialcare

[BBC Newsline @bbcnewsline]

Lynette McHendry says receiving a stage four breast cancer diagnosis should no longer feel like a "death sentence" because of advances in drugs and treatments. At 37, she was told she had aggressive breast cancer which also spread to her brain. A decade on, she is in remission.

[G Field @g2206g]

@GBNEWS @christopherhope Re the question from Sky journalist. My region care homes 95% privatised. Domiciliary moving very close to the same. Massive profits and abhorrent 'care' of our most vulnerable.

[Carole Hawkins @hawkins_carole]

It was George Osborne who stood at the Despatch Box in the House of Commons when Chancellor that said "The elderly are the cash cows for the future." The money men moved in, raised prices, reduced services, basically ripped all the elderly they could off and collapsed the care home and home carers service.

[NEF @NEF]

Burnham won't be able to change our social care system until he fixes one thing: private companies sucking profit out of this essential public service.

Councils spend £34.5bn a year on care, but this cash is being sucked out of the system as profit and investor returns. 1/3

[David__Osland @David__Osland]

It's almost as if stripping local authorities of their role in providing not-for-profit care homes and forcing families to hand over £70,000 a year to private equity firms hasn't worked out all that well

[G Field @g2206g]

@premnsikka Miss Christmas cards, birthday cards etc coming in the post. People no longer can afford to post. A lovely part of our culture lost.

[Prem Sikka @premnsikka]

Alarm at NHS England as patient records put under control of US private equity firm TPG via a takeover.

Business model is profiteering, not care for patients.

Regulatory/Govt silence on expansion of private equity.

Public money fuelling PE growth.
https://t.co/ot8TYs5jxd

[G Field @g2206g]

@Amanda_M_Hunter @GeoFio8 @CompassnInCare
Care Champions Ireland on X Bluestone Dementia Unit in Craigavon Area Hospital. Corvan took degrading photos and videos of the vulnerable

[G Field @g2206g]

@Amanda_M_Hunter @GeoFio8 @CompassnInCare
Care Champions Ireland on X Bluestone Dementia Unit in Craigavon Area Hospital. Corvan took degrading photos and videos of the vulnerable

[G Field @g2206g]

@CareChampions2 I am glad to hear that

[geofio @GeoFio8]

Quote..
The footage showed staff mocking, taunting, restraining and threatening patients. One of them was Alex, a 20 year old autistic woman who had been there almost a year. Her family had no idea until the @BBC showed them the tape.🎥🗣️📢

[G Field @g2206g]

@DjangoBartolli @ArturNadol7566 Futile. Mark own homework. Skip. Have truly confidential/independent report to service. Also mandatory tiny worn on resident/pt cameras-needed for protecting more so than staff wearing them(wrongs go missing).Family check anytime 24/7 via phone app. Know truthfully loved one OK

[G Field @g2206g]

@DjangoBartolli @ArturNadol7566 Definately.

[Catherine McGinty @CathMcGin_Tea]

I was delighted to be invited onto the Jude Collins Podcast this morning with eponymous host, @Jude42.

We discussed 'Shaky Statistics & Fermanagh Patients Being Driven To Derry'.

https://t.co/CaEookonv2

[G Field @g2206g]

@RachelBainbrid5 @human_frozen_ How they silence us - loved one takes the punishment for our very justifiable issues/complaints.

[Eileen Chubb @CompassnInCare]

Like many working with vulnerable groups we are very concerned at the precedent set in the #Kelwick case. When so many vulnerable people are financially abused it is concerning to hear that a defence of "it was a gift" could be so effective. Far too many vulnerable people are financially abused by those in a position of trust. Most health and social care staff would never take a single penny from a vulnerable adult because they know it is fundermentally wrong to do so, regardless of why the vulnerable adult wanted to give them money, but there are unfortunately staff that would exploit vulnerable people.