Through Joanne, I sent a letter to Kate Lampard CBE

31 January 2015 Confidential all replies to the email address above

FAO Kate Lampard CBE

Dear Kate

I have recently been in correspondence with Joanne Miles, Ministerial Correspondence and Public

Enquiries, Department of Health. I have agreed she can forward copies of my letter to Jeremy Hunt

MP and subsequent documents raising a formal complaint following receipt of notice from Capsticks Solicitors that the Secretary of State for Health rejects my claim.

Joanne has stated “I realise that you are disappointed that your claim for compensation has been rejected. Having made enquiries, I am advised by the NHS Litigation Authority that this was because the investigation team at Leeds General Infirmary did not accept the evidence that you provided to them and consider that your claim against the Secretary of State is unlikely to succeed.”

As a victim volunteering to meet with the enquiry team I believed I was assisting the Department of Health to understand what had happened in hospitals in order to “ensure safeguards are in place to prevent a recurrence of matters of concern identified by this investigation and identify matters that require immediate attention.” Immediately after the meeting started I was concerned that this was not the case, it struck me that the enquiry team were in fact using the meetings to determine which victims had a case which was likely to succeed in court and which (in their opinion) did not. I complained to my solicitors about the way in which the investigation team had acted in a damage limitation role. 

An example of this is the way in which the team insisted the incident I described in which I assisted Savile to push a trolley containing the body of a middle aged woman around the hospital, who he assaulted whilst we were in a lift, could not have happened because of a procedure they advised me existed in all hospitals called last rights, this involved wrapping the deceased in a shroud, using a special trolley and ensuring that all deceased persons are moved by two people at all times along with other safeguards.

A further example is the Leeds team stated it was “highly unlikely” that a celebrity as well known as Savile would commit sex acts in his car in a public place and “highly unlikely” that he would commit an assault on a child in as public a location as a hospital corridor.

The Leeds team by acting in this way, in my opinion, exceeded the terms of reference for the Jimmy Savile internal investigation published here http://www.leedsth.nhs.uk/about‐us/news‐andmedia/news‐item/article/terms‐of‐reference‐for‐jimmy‐savile‐internal‐investigation/.

As far as I am aware, at the time of my original statement in 2012, Savile’s unrestricted access to the morgue at Leeds and his unhealthy interest in the dead were not in the public domain. 

In 2014 when the report was published resulting in your televised speech, in which you were obviously distressed at the findings, it was published that;

1.      One former Broadmoor nurse told investigators that Savile claimed to have performed sex acts on bodies and "mucked about" in the mortuary, posing in photographs with the deceased after placing them in lewd positions. The former nurse said: "He [Savile] was saying that they used to put the bodies together, male and female, and he also said that they took photographs and also that he got involved in some of the photographs … I was a little bit upset because I had no concept, in those days, of necrophilia. Several of the Broadmoor patients would have been diagnosed with that, but I didn't fully understand what it meant, and partway through I just wandered off.

2.      One witness said: "I looked at his hands and he had these gross, big silver rings with bulbous things and I sort of went, 'Yes, mm,' always be polite to your superstar, 'Yes, Jim.' And he said: 'D'you know what they are? They are glass eyes from dead bodies in Leeds mortuary where I work and I love working there, and I wheel the dead bodies around at night and I love that.'"

3.      It was not always in a room with the door shut. The 256‐page report on the abuse at the Leeds Teaching Hospital Trust said: "The abusive encounters took place in wards, corridors, offices and other hospital locations, in a nearby cafe, in Savile's mother's house and in his camper van." Forty‐three of the 60 victims who gave evidence to the Leeds inquiry team were assaulted in public areas within and outside the hospital.

I do not understand why my witness testimony has been rejected when other witnesses who provided similar have been included in the final report?

I am now finally receiving psychoanalytical psychiatric care arranged for me by my GP (following the failure of the Leeds team to organise this despite offering to do so). The care will take 1 session per week for a year to conclude how the Leeds Psychiatric care tem can help me to stop dwelling upon the abuse and its consequences, I am sure you will agree this is a large commitment on my behalf.

Unfortunately Joanne has advised that Jeremy Hunt MP, despite his passionate speech to the House, is unavailable to meet me as his diary is too full.

I look forward to your response.

Signed

REDACTED

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