OPPORTUNTIES were missed to house a rough sleeper whose body was found decomposing in a tent close to the heart of the city, an independent review has claimed.
A Worcester City Council commissioned examination into the death of 74-year-old Cardon Banfield has looked at the contact between Mr Banfield and local authority services in the year leading up to his death.
The rough sleeper was discovered in July 2016 close to the cricket ground on New Road and sparked fury among homeless campaigners who have demanded answers since the tragedy was uncovered.
His body was so badly decomposed he had to be identified from his DNA and an inquest into his death recorded an open verdict.
Review chief Neelam Sunder revealed Mr Banfield had lived a ‘transient’ life since arriving in the UK from the Caribbean in 1966 and moved around the UK on a regular basis
After initial contact in 2005, no further records of the 74-year-old’s whereabouts were found until May 2013 until March 2016 where he interacted with local services five times in less than three years.
The review found he attended Maggs Day Centre a total of 12 times between May 2013 and March 2016, recieved support from Worcestershire Homeless Intervention Team to access accommodation in January 2014 and lived at YMCA Worcestershire between January 31, 2014 and February 22, 2014.
Ms Sunder acknowledged local services worked with Mr Banfield when he was in the area for a relatively significant amount of time to ensure he was accommodated and not rough sleeping.
“However, from the information examined it does seem that the accommodation options considered were limited to those within homelessness services or those that they had access to,” her report said.
“The report author feels this was a missed opportunity. For example, given he was in his seventies, alternative options such as sheltered accommodation could have been considered. ”
It is possible his transient nature and presenting behaviours may have indicated undiagnosed or undisclosed mental ill health and the reason for why he found it difficult to settle.”
City council managing director, David Blake, said: “We commissioned this independent review into the tragic death of a rough sleeper in order to enable lessons to be learned, identify any missed opportunities for intervention and to prevent avoidable deaths of people sleeping rough in the future.
“The aim of the review is to identify opportunities for learning and service improvement, and to improve outcomes for people sleeping rough.
Councillors on the Communities Committee will be asked next week to endorse the establishment of a working group of services across Worcestershire which work with homeless people.
This expert group would be asked to consider the review’s recommendations and establish how and when they will be implemented.
THE RECOMMENDATIONS IN FULL:
* A skills audit of frontline staff who work with rough sleepers to establish if they need training in mental health awareness, assessing mental capacity, spotting self-neglect, information sharing with services outside of the county
* Cross-border working to establish an alerts system for when transient rough sleepers move between different counties
* A local reporting system for members of the public to report rough sleepers, alongside a campaign to raise awareness of what services for rough sleepers are available in Worcestershire
* Partnership work with the police, fire service and voluntary agencies to increase the safety of people sleeping rough
* The introduction of guidelines for the transition from one homeless service to another, for use when a homeless service is decommissioned and another is brought in replace it
* Improved record keeping for information on rough sleepers
* A commitment to carry out a review every time a person dies while sleeping rough.
A LEADING campaigner who organised the #JusticeForCardon campaign has criticised the review for not evaluating the key elements in the case
Hugo Sugg spoke out and criticised review chiefs for not approaching West Mercia Police for their feedback and accused them of ‘relying on glance/oversight, rather than formal analysis’.
The campaigner wasn’t interviewed for the review, even though he said he personally knew and worked with Cardon during his stay at the Worcester YMCA.
“On behalf of Cardon himself, his family and the legacy he has left behind – rest assured I will leave no stone unturned in the campaign to get answers into why Cardon was left alone to die, rot and decompose to the point of partial mummification,” he said.
“Cardon was a human being first and foremost, then a son, father, uncle, brother, husband and friend and should be treated with the due respect a 74-year-old man should be treated with but still isn’t being.”
