Resident at The Briars in Southampton was 'left soaked in urine'

When occupational therapist Sharon Stewart visited The Briars at 11am, staff told her that the resident, known as Ivy, had been sitting in the building’s communal area since 2am.

Southampton Crown Court heard how Ivy’s clothing was “urine saturated” and that there was a “strong smell of urine” in her bedroom.

Describing her visit to the home on September 11, 2008, Mrs Stewart said that there were stains on Ivy’s bed, while a gap had opened up in the divan base.

“When we tried to assist Ivy to stand up she was very stiff,”

she told the court.

“Her stockings had fallen down from where they were meant to be and were indenting in her ankle.”

Jurors in the trial of The Briars owner Annette Hopkins and manager Margaret Priest heard how a stairlift at the home had no seat belt and that some of its casing was broken.

Previously jurors had been told how inspectors from the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) made a series of unannounced visits to The Briars days before they took action to close the home in Thorold Road, Bitterne Park.

CSCI regulation manager Carol Payne described how the level of nursing needed in the home was high.

“It was the condition that we found residents in that made it anything but a normal situation,”

she told the court.

“Clearly for ten people at any one time to need to receive nursing care is a number I have never come across in any other residential home.”

She added that one elderly woman had looked to be “very, very thin, very gaunt and frail”.

“She wanted somebody to hold her hand,” Mrs Payne said.

Hopkins, 64, of Thorold Road, and Priest, 56, of Lydgate Green, Hightown, deny charges of ill treatment and neglect of 16 elderly residents.