Article by Karen Flood, Independent Consultant who has learning difficulties.

It made me feel sick inside to watch the MacIntyre Undercover programme. I felt helpless because I couldn’t do anything to help those people in that home.

Where is the justice if staff can treat the people they are paid to look after like that and not be convicted fully through the Courts instead of just cautions? If they treated people who didn’t have a disability like that - would they have got away with it? It should be much harder for people to get jobs like this. If you have a bad attitude, and don’t care about people’s rights you should not be allowed to do this work.

If I had lived in the Brompton Home I would have been very, very scared. Imagine living in a place where the staff have all the power, you have no apparent rights, no-one listens to you, and no-one speaks up for you. And if you are hit you are unable to get anyone to help because you can’t talk and people don’t want to or can’t communicate with you. People filmed in that home were so full of fear. It is important to remember that they will be affected for the rest of their lives. For some of them just the sound of an alarm going off will be enough to fill them with terror. Which is why they were often threatened with it by many of the staff there.

I thought that the police were there to protect everyone. I can’t believe that no-one went to jail for the things that went on in that home. If the Police weren’t sure how to work with people with learning difficulties they should have asked us for help.

I have learning disabilities and I would have helped. No one in the home were asked about the home by the Police even though some of them could talk and could have explained what went on there - if given the chance.

Those of us who work with people with learning difficulties know that homes like this are still out there. We need help from the Police, Social Services and others so that staff who frighten, abuse and assault people with learning difficulties must know they can’t get away with it!