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More Cogs in the Wheel of Corruption (5/6)


Corruption can only flourish if there are people who actively take part in it. There is a surprising amount of information out there about doctors and other (so-called) professionals, who have mental ill-health, personality disorders and substance addictions, who behave appallingly.

Some of the staff listed here are from SPFT's CAMHS, I didn't include all the guilty CAMHS staff because this website is primarily about adult services (there was overlap however, due to collusion between the two services). However there is a sister website with additional CAMHS names here and more detail. And just to prove that it wasn't myself who was the problem, because they lied to cover up their failings, here is proof on the sister website, that multiple autism families complained about them for the exact same reasons, to the degree that the LA did a scrutiny panel on SPFT CAMHS provision and Healthwatch also did a report. Not only that, but local media reported on it.

Genuine professional mistakes can be forgiven up to a point, if people acknowledge them, apologise and rectify them. But there are deliberate actions which are harmful to people, that are inexcusable for anyone, but most especially in people in positions of trust and power.

Simon Street ~ Complaints and PALS Manager, SPFT Twitter: @Simon19702003

Publicly states he has a "strong commitment to improving the patient experience" and "...ensures that SPFT delivers on it's commitments to improving patient care and their experience of our services" but:

  • personally assisted in the cover-up of my complaint and SPFTs lies;

  • wrote a deliberately dishonest and misleading letter to PHSO, implying that my private assessment could be substandard (erm, it included eight differential tests, multiple interviews with me and my parent and husband and childhood, medical and other evidence - which SPFTs assessments included none of and he knew this!!) and stating that SPFT conducts NHS NICE compliant ASD assessments, when NICE Guidelines for autism weren't written until 3 years after my SPFT assessments and SPFT did not comply with any standard but were falsely claiming I did not "engage" with their service;

  • ignored my email pointing out the factual falsehoods in his letter.

Dr Sarah James ~ SPFT CAMHS child psychiatrist:

  • as lead clinician, failed to diagnose eldest child with ASD (child subsequently diagnosed at a 2nd NHS opinion), having administered the (shortened) ADI-R parental ASD interview with me, rushed through it, constantly looking at her watch throughout, deliberately failed to read vital written evidence about our child's Asperger's behaviours that I had sent beforehand specifically for the assessment, (I found documented evidence through an SAR, in which she admitted to ignoring and simply filing it, in a tone that belittled and derided me) and despite the overall score being within clinical range for ASD, didn't diagnose her (tried instead to explain away the high scores as being due to anxiety and OCD, neither of which our child was diagnosed with, but in any case both of which are commonly co-morbid to ASD!);

  • lied on record about the nature of a phone call between myself and her colleague Dr Tansy Walker, saying that I had "cut short" the call and that the call was: "...typically controlled or curtailed by [me]" which was absolutely false and she emailed this to social services, to portray me as a controlling, domineering parent, lied to them that I was preventing our child being seen alone (when she herself had seen our child alone!!) and colluded with colleagues to falsely insinuate 'emotional harm' from me to our child without any cause;

  • wrote in an email to multiple colleagues across services, about me, "I would be concerned about where she is finding time to home educate her children given the level of correspondence she is engaged in." despite her knowing zero about my educational provision - and which in fact happened to be approved and endorsed by the LA and despite knowing zero about how much time I did, or didn't spend on correspondence (it's this ignorant, speculative and malicious gossip, that you just wouldn't expect of people in these roles);

  • in an email on 15.4.13 falsely described me as "bombarding" CAMHS with emails (I sent important information prior to the child's autism assessment in writing, explaining that I go blank in verbal questioning and forget important things and didn't want to hinder the assessment!).

  • On 19.11.13 sent an email to up to thirteen professionals, crowing, "we are ignoring all" and "not reading or replying" in regard to vital correspondence from myself about our child, requesting CAMHS support for her and fabricated in this email, that I possessed a "level of hostility to our services" that was claimed to be "so great" and described my correspondence as "hostile, obsessive and intrusive communications" , absolutely lied saying about me, saying:"...has not accepted any help for [child]'s mental health in the past" and "they have refused any service for CAMHS" when I was the one who sought a referral for our child's ASD assessment and brought our child religiously to CAMHS to try to get her to engage in appointments with them;

  • also failed to identify that this child had PDA or diagnose it, which was later recognised by another (non SPFT) professional

  • also failed to identify that this child had ADHD or diagnose it, which was later diagnosed by adult services.

(James' husband also used to work for SPFT CAMHS and in complete contrast, when we saw him much later for a medication 2nd opinion for the same child, he seemed a really pleasant man and he recognised her needs).

Dr Conny Gutjahr ~ SPFT CAMHS child psychiatrist:

Bear in mind this woman only ever met me once, at a perfectly ordinary and uneventful meeting, that they requested I have with her and Brenda Davis, as CAMHS had lost our daughter's file, during the time she was waiting to be seen for ASD assessment (which meant I had to complete a whole batch of questionnaires all over again).

  • Seriously character assassinated and libelled me in emails to multiple professionals, (several of whom were maliciously discussing me, as part of the cover-up over my Asperger's diagnosis), questioned whether I was mentally-ill and needed forcible mental health assessment (see below), simply because I sent them (very helpful) emails with important information on our child's autism difficulties in preparation for her ASD assessment (following which they failed to diagnose her, which seems to be the modus operandi for SPFT and she had to be diagnosed out-of-area)! Made petty, gossipy comments about what time of day I had sent emails and said in an email on 17.5.13: "I think that if mum is considered mentally stable or well it might be useful for us to think over the harassment issue again! If she is considered to be unwell and subsequently non compliant with further assessments of her own health, her behaviour incl. complaints could be seen as symptomatic and might fall into the realm of adult mental health & child protection/safeguarding again."

  • Emailed derogatory comments about me in the same email to a colleague, copied in to multiple professionals: "Mike thanks for holding up - a veritable baptism of fire!"

  • Lied in an email about me to social services saying I had declined her colleague Tansy Walker seeing our child at home, when this was never even offered;

  • referred to my communication style as "manic" just because I sent normal correspondence discussing resolving our autistic child's anxiety difficulties, which is their job to help with! Yet admitted in writing to not having read any of my correspondence despite this!! Referred to me as "obsessional and unrealistic" (what, for expecting CAMHS to do their job?!). Bizarrely stated that the times of day of my emails indicated that I was "not sleeping much" or "must do so in the daytime"! Suggested I had a "mood disorder" and even "mania" that needed assessment or treatment and all of this, despite me having been in ongoing contact with Rebecca Simpson, (from SPFTs Neurobehavioural Clinic which had previously failed to diagnose my AS and who CAMHS were in contact with behind my back in breach of data protection law!), who knew of my private Asperger's diagnosis and had a copy of the report (and submitted it to the funding panel) in which it was clearly stated I had been thoroughly tested for and found to have NO personality disorder, psychiatric disorder, or mental health condition! But of course, Simpson was part of the cover-up over their diagnostic failure, so happily continued the lies.

Dr Tansy Walker ~ SPFT CAMHS psychologist:

  • conducted the ADOS-2 part of our eldest child's autism assessment and failed to diagnose her with ASD, simply because she missed the cut-off on the ADOS by 2-3 points (but was well within clinical range on the ADI-R and I had provided them a detailed birth-to-date report on her ASD behaviours and difficulties), when all the official guidance says clinical tools are not to be relied upon in making a diagnostic decision;

  • relayed a false report to colleagues about the nature of a phone conversation I had with her regarding the same child's mental health;

  • failed to recognise and diagnose the child's PDA and ADHD (later independently diagnosed);

  • distressed this same vulnerable autistic 11yo child at ASD assessment, by asking her if she had a boyfriend and telling her that a cartoon character she believed in, wasn't real. Child was so distressed she refused to ever have anything further to do with CAMHS.

  • also failed to identify that this child had PDA or diagnose it, which was later recognised by another (non SPFT) professional

  • also failed to identify that this child had ADHD or diagnose it, which was later diagnosed by adult services.

Dr Brenda Davis, CAMHS ~ senior SPFT CAMHS psychologist (responsible for the ASD pathway for most of the South East and some of the South West of England):

  • admitted to me, having lost daughter's CAMHS file and vital screening forms completed for ASD assessment, then denied having done so when I raised it as part of a formal complaint;

  • oversaw and rubber-stamped the ASD diagnostic failure of eldest child;

  • as a result of an assessment at a home visit, failed to diagnose same child with depression and anxiety disorder (including failing to recognise her suicidal ideation), which was concurrently diagnosed by an out-of-area NHS hospital and lied in her report on this visit, that our child had said she felt "isolated" (all part of the lies against me);

  • responsible for her staff's failure to adhere to multiple requirements of NHS NICE Guidance CG128 during ASD assessment;

  • failed to recognise and diagnose eldest child's PDA and ADHD;

  • neglected psychological needs of other 7yo autistic child who was referred to her for severe anxiety by the paediatrician, without any support or treatment for three whole years leaving me to struggle supporting her serious behavioural and emotional difficulties to child and family detriment;

  • is so inexpert about ASD that when she did a mental health assessment of our eldest child she asked her whether we let her vulnerable 8yo autistic sister go out alone (clearly trying to make me appear an overbearing, controlling parent as part of their attempts to discredit and undermine me, but actually served to show up their ASD ignorance further)!

  • took part in malicious speculative gossip about me with colleagues and falsely alleged safeguarding concerns;

  • failed to respond to queries regarding anomalies in her report, or to correct mistakes raised with her in it, just thanked me for the email!


Peter Joyce ~ SPFT CAMHS General Manager:

  • wrote a deliberately deceptive and misleading background chronology to the 2nd opinion NHS hospital regarding our child's ASD assessment with his CAMHS, lying that I had refused to attend appointments with their clinicians, trying to make me appear obstructive and controlling, which was the opposite of the truth and I had communicated closely with CAMHS about all the efforts I had made to convince our child to attend (but as they'd upset her at her ASD assessment of course she wouldn't and she has PDA which they failed to identify) and lied to the hospital that I was "over-parenting" our child;

  • failed to have his staff correct factual errors in their reports and actively defended their mistakes;

  • allowed (and therefore condoned) his staff to behave negligently, unethically, unprofessionally and unlawfully; when multiple libellous comments about me, that were discovered in internal emails between his staff through an SAR were copied to him, failed to take any disciplinary action against them whatsoever, simply said "The issues raised will be discussed with the individuals concerned within their formal clinical supervision." Wow, that's alright then - and I I don't suppose for one moment he even did that anyway.

Dr Judith Jarrett ~ psychologist SPFT previously in adult mental health, then transferred to SPFT CAMHS:

  • Failed to recognise my own Asperger's and was very resistant to referring me for an assessment;

  • Tried to explain away my spiky profile on the tests she did;

  • Was clearly inexperienced in her job (made a comment in a report about her having anxiety during my sessions with her!);

  • Said I couldn't have Asperger's for this bizarre reason:

  • When next encountering her at CAMHS where she was working years later, she failed to engage our child for mental health support over the best part of a year, or to recognise that she had PDA and ADHD (even though she was aware of the existing ASD diagnosis);

  • At our child's final appointment with her, she was very rude to me, but I then found out she was also joining in bad-mouthing me in the professional network a couple of months later, which explained why, even though she knew me from both adult and child services, as our child had asked me to attend all her mental health appointments with her, so she knew I was a very good parent and not any risk to anyone.

Lucy Steiner ~ Service Manager, Specialist Services (and line manager to Rebecca Simpson) SPFT

Colluded with Simpson in emails over the cover-up of their diagnostic failure. Wrote untrue and derogatory emails about me such as this one on 28.1.13 to five colleagues: "Incidentally it is important to clarify here that Nick Medford WAS NOT present at the second assessment - this has been challenged with her previously but she appears to have a selective memory." (he was present!)

Dr Andrea Cohen ~ SPFT clinical psychologist

  • It came to a point with all these professionals banding against me, obstructing and lying about me, that I reached a level of stress that I couldn't cope with. I was parenting two autistic children with significant difficulties and was forced into battling other services for their needs also (DLA, statements of SEN, there was school-refusal and behavioural issues going on from the children etc.) and I asked the GP to refer me to a local respite facility to recover. Autistics go into either meltdown or shut-down and I was just about in shut-down. Dr Cohen sent an email to my GP saying "In my opinion [me] does not require a hospital bed. The trust reserves hospital for the most severely mentally-ill clients who are a risk to themselves and/or others." so they were all trying to trump up false child protection allegations despite her admitting I was not any risk!

  • I was at one point sent for CBT (which was not because of being mentally unwell, it was for something unrelated to my ASD diagnosis issue), which I waited two years for and she refused to recognise my ASD, even though research shows that CBT has to be adjusted for autistic neurology or it can be ineffective, or even harmful.

  • She said at my appointment with her that I had "too much going on" to have CBT, because of all the things I was having to deal with on my autistic children's behalf, but she wrote a letter to my GP, falsely stating that it was myself who declined the CBT and professionals then used this against me saying I wasn't "engaging" and this was also misused by PHSO to claim SPFT had offered me support (I didn't need mental health support, I was seeking an autism care pathway as an autistic person) and had supposedly discharged their duty.

Alison Rhodes ~ Specialist Services Manager, SPFT

  • refused to answer important questions (which alone constitutes NHS maladministration as per PHSOs definition) about their decision not to fund an ASD reassessment (that I had previously been promised), put to the funding panel she was part of, told me to go to PHSO if I was dissatisfied, but knew that withholding the answers I needed would disadvantage me doing so;

  • took part in a senior role, in two sham funding panels actively colluding with SPFT colleagues to do so, having already used the same clinician's reasoning, that had failed to diagnose me, as a reason to deny funding for a reassessment, that was because he had failed to diagnose me;

  • sent deliberately misleading information to PHSO about the funding panel.

Dan Stewart ~ Manager of the Neurobehavioural Clinic Twitter: @danhstewart

Told my (national charity) advocate on the phone the following, which are email screenshots with added highlights - as you will see all they were interested in was saving face and didn't care that they broke the law to do so:

It also demonstrates their failure to comply with the law - the Autism Act 2009 and the Autism Strategy 2010. He also admitted the whole reason they would not recognise my private diagnosis was to save face!

Lisa Rodrigues ~ ex-CEO, SPFT Twitter: @LisaSaysThis

  • Ignored an email I sent her on 4.2.13 asking if SPFT had a policy that allowed them to refuse to recognise a private ASD diagnosis (I found out later that NHS rules meant they couldn't);

  • Was complicit in allowing cover-up of SPFT's diagnostic failure, breaches of various laws, unlawful breaches of the NHS Constitution and their own procedural rules - it all happened under her watch;

  • Unsurprisingly, SPFT had a history of really poor staff feedback, during her time as CEO, reporting a bullying culture and obviously staff working in that environment pay it forward onto patients! https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/10993563.sussex-mental-health-boss-sorry-for-blame-fear-and-bullying-highlighted-in-staff-survey/

"Almost 70% of workers taking part in the survey felt the trust’s culture was signified by traits of blame, fear and bullying and gave examples of incidents where people were threatened and belittled."

Colm Donaghy ~ ex-CEO, SPFT

He took over as CEO after Lisa Rodrigues, who was the CEO in post at the time SPFT failed to diagnose me. In the hope of him being different, honest, I emailed him on 1.12.14 explaining the situation and asking him for help resolving the situation and other than a dismissive email from his secretary that didn't answer what I emailed, when I replied about this I got no further reply. I asked Peter Kyle, MP to help and he also wrote to Mr Donaghy. He did not reply to him either. He left SPFT after less than 3 years, a very short stint for a CEO, I wonder why! Another hypocritical public statement by SPFT that doesn't line up with reality:

"A message from Colm Donaghy, CEO

One of our values is ‘everyone counts’. This means we value, appreciate and respect each other.At Sussex Partnership we believe people should be able to achieve their full potential regardless of age, disability, race, nationality, ethnic or national origin, gender, religion, sexual orientation or domestic circumstances."

Sam Allen ~ CEO, SPFT Twitter: @SamanthAllen

See this page for a single blog post relating to her involvement and how she has further covered-up what SPFT have done to me, with yet more lies.

Watch this space...

Only one of the 'cogs' on this page is not from Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. And that is:

Dr Paul Evans, GP ~ Wish Park Surgery, my ex-GP - do you think this man should be a practising doctor? He:

  • lied to multiple professionals that I was mentally unwell, causing massive harm my to entire family;

  • point blank refused to provide reasonable adjustments I was legally entitled to and needed, to access healthcare, in breach of Equality Act 2010 law (I reported this to Healthwatch who saw written evidence of his practice manager's lies over this matter);

  • breached the Data Protection Act 1998 in multiple serious ways;

  • contributed to SPFT's failure to diagnose our child's ASD by telling malicious and unprofessional lies about me in emails to CAMHS staff, saying I was "obsessed with autism" and "projecting my anxiety" onto my children (funny how we were all subsequently diagnosed with ASD and I was also documented to have no mental ill-health...) and on 3.5.13, when I had already been diagnosed with ASD for four months "She cannot be spending much time with her children as evidenced by the number of faxes, emails and letters she is sending all of us by this fixation about getting herself diagnosed with autism." (total hyperbole and I spent a lot of quality time with my children!);

  • committed false record-keeping in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998, denied having spoken to our vulnerable 12yo child on telephone, a call in which he incredibly, asked her whether I was exaggerating her school difficulties and whether I was causing her anxiety (which she vehemently denied and stated that her school problems were "really bad", so he denied speaking to her on record, in order to continue with conjuring up false concerns to others about me) and further lied by stating that I shouted and became tearful on the phone;

  • whipped up a frenzy with other professionals, as a result of which, they held a covert child safeguarding meeting at his practice, to discuss me supposedly making up our child's school difficulties;

  • breached multiple GMC rules;

  • made an illicit and therefore unlawful social services referral without any basis, simply because I mentioned during a consultation to obtain a referral for our younger child's ASD assessment, that I was a home-educator (with an excellent, fully LA-approved provision which he never bothered asking me a thing about);

  • lied to me that he would arrange a reassessment for Asperger's for me and instead tricked me, by referring me to a mental health service that had nothing to do with ASD assessments;

  • described me to multiple other professionals as "bombarding" and "hounding" him because I sent him two short email queries using his NHS email address (which PALS had confirmed beforehand was fine to use - and our current GP has no problem with using their direct NHS email);

  • when I requested access to my records (which I needed, to seek relevant childhood health information for my private Asperger's assessment), he insisted on personally sitting there watching over me whilst I viewed them and pulling out obviously irrelevant and very personal items which he incredibly tried to read out in front of my children, with a hint of a smirk on his face;

  • unbelievably, heavily insinuated to multiple other professionals over email, that a letter our child had handwritten about her school difficulties and the associated distress she was in, was written by myself - this had the effect of professionals ignoring her cries for help over how she wasn't coping in school;

  • after I faxed him my Asperger's diagnostic report, asked me for the contact details of the private clinician, on the pretext of verifying my diagnosis to enter onto my heath records and instead rang him to try to talk him out of my diagnosis - incredibly also telling him to contact NHS mental health services about me, without my knowledge or consent, in yet another very serious Data Protection breach!

  • lied on record saying both our children were having 'tantrums' at the surgery when neither of them had done any such thing, so that he could continue saying I was causing them anxiety;

  • denied my Asperger's diagnosis was on my health records, when I had obtained a copy of my files and seen he had recorded it there months previously;

  • withheld from my SAR, specific emails containing the evidence of him libelling me, using excuses such as that there were "safeguarding issues" (there were not, despite his best efforts to make people think there were and not that this would have any relevance to my SAR anyway) and that the emails could "cause harm" to either myself or our children (!), and only eventually relented, when I threatened legal action - but before he sent them, he sent a hurried, panicked email to all the SPFT 'professionals' he had been bad-mouthing about me with, a warning bolding his own saying "She now also has copies of all her and her childrens GP records!" In his covering letter to me, he said he had "taken legal advice", that's how desperate he was to avoid giving them to me - and when I saw the lies and nasty, unprofessional comments he made about me, I saw precisely why;

  • when we changed practices due to his horribly deranged and unprofessional behaviour, he contacted our new GP telling him lies about me, saying I had "diagnosed myself" with Asperger's (I found this out through seeing a copy of a totally unrelated referral letter the new GP wrote) when he had himself, entered my formal diagnosis onto my health records in June 2013;

  • even after we left his practice, he told multiple other professionals he would try to remain involved with our family! He sent an email to a social worker saying "let me know if you need me to communicate with the new GP" and (24.2.13) "I would be happy to liaise with her new GP" Clearly he thought he would get information from the new GP (who it appears he personally knew) and continue his unbalanced behaviour!

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