NHS ward manager Benjamin Aninakwa is sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for 12 months, after being found guilty of health and safety failings when 22-year-old Alice Figueiredo took her own life at London's Goodmayes Hospital in July 2015.
00:00And apart from that one instruction that I'm prepared to accept you gave at the very outset of her stay, you effectively did nothing of your own volition to address this very serious issue, whereas it should have been an absolute priority for you.
00:18And I regard the fact that certainly, up until the beginning of June, Alice had that continued ability to access plastic bags from that toilet as being inexcusable.
00:34I therefore conclude that the seriousness of your criminality was such that it can only be marked with a sentence of imprisonment, any other sentence being insufficient.
00:48Further, by way of a starting point, having regard to the seriousness of your offending, this should, in my judgment, be towards the top of the range.
01:0322-year-old Alice Figueredo took her own life in a mental health unit at Goodmay's Hospital in Redbridge after 18 similar attempts.
01:15Her death on 7 July 2015 followed a failure to remove plastic items from the communal toilet on the Hepworth ward that had been used by her to self-harm.
01:28On Tuesday, the North East London NHS Foundation Trust was fined ÂŁ565,000 plus ÂŁ200,000 in costs after being found guilty of breaching health and safety.
01:41Ward manager, 54-year-old Benjamin Aninaqua of Graze in Essex, was convicted of failing to take reasonable care for the health and safety of patients on the ward that Miss Figueredo was on.
01:57He was sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for 12 months, plus 300 hours of unpaid work.
02:05These events occurred over 10 years ago.
02:10I am prepared to suspend that period of imprisonment for a period of 12 months.
02:19What that means, Mr Aninaqua, is that provided you commit no further offences punishable with imprisonment,
02:27after the fact that the people have been being raised.
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