A teenager with learning disabilities was unlawfully sedated and flown from south-west England to Dundee without her or her parents’ consent, a report has found.
The girl’s journey, which took place in 2007, has been likened by a former health boss to “extraordinary rendition to Guantánamo Bay”.
The decision to fly her under sedation to Scotland was also taken against the advice of her professional advocate, according to the BBC, which has seen a leaked copy of the report.
She stayed in Scotland for a month before being moved to Winterbourne View private hospital, where the abuse of patients was exposed in a BBC Panorama programme in 2011.
The BBC said the report concluded that health and social care can only act “with the consent of the individual or have clear grounds to dispense with that consent”. “To do otherwise is unlawful,” the report added.
NHS South of England said there had been significant improvements since then in the treatment of people with learning disabilities, largely as a result of the Winterbourne View scandal.
The primary care trust and strategic health authority which were directly responsible for her care do not exist any more.
Gabriel Scally, the former head of public health in south-west England, who requested the investigation into the girl’s treatment, told the BBC: “It sounded like this was a hardened criminal being moved by a very oppressive state – or extraordinary rendition to Guantánamo Bay or something like that. Now that may seem an extraordinary exaggeration but I am quite sure for the person involved it was highly difficult and traumatic.”
