'No one should have to go through what David did’

Tormented for a decade, neighbours of a man with learning difficulties found dead outside his own home say he suffered years of abuse from a gang of youths,’ announced a Sky News anchor the day after police found David Askew’s body. The officers had received reports of ‘yobs causing trouble near his house’.

This was just one of many news stories following the death on 10 March 2010 of Mr Askew, a 64-year-old Peak Valley Housing Association tenant with learning disabilities. He had been living with his disabled mother Rose, who was 89 at the time, and his 67-year-old brother Brian, in a house on Melandra Crescent in Hattersley, Greater Manchester.

The harassment by local youths was immediately believed to have led to his death and questions were raised about why agencies, including the police and his housing association landlord, hadn’t protected the family from years of upset. Many wanted to know why they hadn’t been re-housed.

Following the tragedy Mr Askew’s landlord, Peak Valley - part of Symphony Housing Group following last month’s merger of Contour Housing Group with Vicinity Housing Group - was forced to defend its record on anti-social behaviour. However, staff did not want to talk in detail about events leading up to Mr Askew’s death until a serious case review into the incident was completed.

That review was published in March by the Tameside Adult Safeguarding Partnership, a council-run multi-agency group, which aims to protect adults. It was then that the housing association invited Inside Housing to Hattersley to discuss exactly what happened - and the steps it and other agencies are now taking to ensure other vulnerable people do not suffer in the way Mr Askew did.

History repeating

All social landlords and their partner organisations, including local authority community safety teams and social services, should take some time to assess where things went wrong for Mr Askew. Indeed, press reports quickly noted that his death was not an isolated incident - troublemakers have targeted vulnerable people with tragic consequences across the country. They include the tragedy of 38-year-old Fiona Pilkington who, in October 2007, killed herself and her disabled daughter Francecca in a burning car after suffering relentless abuse from local teenagers on the Leicestershire council estate where they lived.

Meanwhile, the SCR itself points to previous cases where individuals have been harassed or tortured to death, including Steven Hoskin, the 38-year-old year-old man with learning difficulties brutally murdered by a gang in Cornwall in July 2006.

The fateful spring day of Mr Askew’s death began with youths tormenting him and his family and damaging their garden gate. It ended after the assailants returned, scattering papers from a bin into the garden and then throwing the bin at the house. Police were called and Mr Askew went out to clear the papers. Officers arrived nine minutes later to find him lying in the garden with his hand on his chest.

Mr Askew died of natural causes - he was not physically assaulted that evening, although he had been in the past.The pathology report into his death refers to ‘a combination of a heart attack and a small cancerous tumour at the junction of his oesophagus and stomach’. Although the pathologist stated that ‘the stress of the harassment could have exacerbated the medical issues’ he ‘could not confirm this was the case’.

The effect of the torment Mr Askew suffered during a separate incident, however, can be seen in video footage aired in TV broadcasts. It shows him being harassed by young people outside his home - he looks agitated and helpless and bites his hand in frustration.

Shocking discovery

In Peak Valley Housing’s office on the Hattersley estate Joanne Danaher, the association’s local neighbourhood manager who visited the Askew family on several occasions, and managing director Phil Corris recall how they felt immediately after Mr Askew died.

‘Our first reaction to David’s death was shock. Most of us in the team knew David and his family and so our thoughts soon turned to them and how Mrs Askew, in particular, was coping,’ says Mr Corris. ‘Among the staff at Peak Valley there was a feeling of profound frustration as the level of multi-agency work that has taken place to protect David and his family over the years has still resulted in this tragedy.

‘In Tameside [the local authority area of Manchester that includes Hattersley], the working relationships we have with all different agencies are held up as a beacon of good practice. It’s held up to be replicated in other areas, and despite all that work, this tragedy has still happened.’

Yet the Independent Police Complaints Commission’s report into Mr Askew’s death, also published in March, criticised inter-partnership working between Greater Manchester Police and other agencies in relation to 88 reported incidents involving the Askew family between January 2004 and March 2010.

‘The lack of consistent identification of, and response to, the vulnerability factors affecting the Askew family; the total failure to recognise and respond to incidents as hate crime as well as the apparent lack of coordination and cohesive action between partner agencies; and the lack of robust offender management, all led to incidents being dealt with locally and in isolation over a number of years,’ stated IPCC Commissioner Naseem Malik.

The SCR, on the other hand, finds that while there were ‘no significant failures by agencies within their areas of responsibility and from their single and multi-agency perspective of the problem based on the information available to them.’

The report’s author, Shirley Williams, an independent consultant in health and social care and independent chair of the North West Safeguarding Adults Board, does, however, speculate that because there were so many people involved with Mr Askew and his family, ‘they each believed someone else would be doing something’.

‘There was a great deal of commitment to protect the family,’ she writes. ‘Some agencies engaged in a high level of activity and staff worked, “beyond their job description”; but there was some confusion of focus, lack of robust monitoring of plans; some ineffective CCTV and fencing; and lack of clarity over the lead agency.’

On just one occasion, in April 2007, concerns about Mr Askew were referred to the Tameside Adult Safeguarding Partnership, the report reveals. The formal process of a strategy meeting, investigation and case conference began and protection plans were put in place. But these were not developed when further incidents occurred according the SCR.

Lessons learned

These are the points that Peak Valley is now taking on board (see box, below: What’s changed since David Askew’s death?). ‘The incidents [involving the Askew family] tended to be dealt with very much on a local basis,’ Mr Corris concedes, ‘so Peak Valley would take action against some of the perpetrators - when we knew who they were. The Hattersley Neighbourhood Partnership would get involved. The police, certainly the local beat manager, knew the family probably better than any other family in the area, and would attend virtually on a daily basis - and then there were social services input, Safeguarding Adults input, but it didn’t really get elevated up the ladder.’

‘Organisations were sharing the information, but all the organisations weren’t brought around the table at the same time to share the information,’ Ms Danaher adds.

As for the comment by the IPCC’s Mr Malik about Greater Manchester Police’s failure to recognise the incidents as hate crimes - staff at Peak Valley did, in fact, attempt to log a hate crime report with the local police office, but failed to check it was processed. The SCR confirms that it was not. ‘We didn’t follow up that report to ensure it was acted upon,’ says Mr Corris - which is something the association now has to live with.

To fully understand what happened to Mr Askew, and to therefore find out how the various agencies, all of which seem to have had good intentions, went wrong requires going back to the very beginning.

Hattersley is an overspill estate built by Manchester Council on the city’s outskirts in 1962. The Askew family moved to their end-of-terrace house, 32 Melandra Crescent, in 1971. Almost immediately local youths began bothering Mr Askew. By the time Peak Valley, a newly formed stock transfer organisation, became the Askews’ landlord in September 2006, the family had endured years of abuse-filled days and nights similar to the one on which Mr Askew died.

‘David wasn’t a very good speaker,’ says his mother Ms Askew, when Inside Housing speaks to her on the phone. ‘He could make you understand, but some people don’t have patience, so they made fun of him, threw stones and spat at him.’

Between January 2007 and March 2010 there were more than 90 recorded incidents of burglary, harassment and general anti-social incidents at the Askews’ home; and torment, theft and assault against Mr Askew when he was out in his local community.

According to agency records, the frequency of incidents appears to have waxed and waned - but they never went away. The records reveal that in July 2007 Mr Askew visited a local GP following a kick to the chest.

Twenty six named young people were known to have been perpetrators of the abuse. Many lived locally, and Ms Askew believes that some of their parents had also harrassed her son when they were youths. ‘It goes from brother to brother then their children,’ she says. ‘From one generation to another.’

The SCR states that some of the bullies were thought to be as young as five years old.

‘David spent most of his time either at the shopping area or directly outside his house,’ says Mr Corris as we tour the estate, stopping outside Mr Askew’s home and then leading us down a short stretch of road to the shopping precinct where he bought cigarettes, visited the bookmakers and encountered local youths. ‘He identified with them as his peer group,’ explains Mr Corris. ‘One of the sad things is that David wanted to be friends with some of the people that were causing him problems,’ adds Ms Danaher.

Prevention or cure?

The SCR was the first time all the incidents suffered by Mr Askew, reported by 11 different agencies, have been compiled. In light of the information gathered, could the awful culmination of these events have been avoided?

Even now it appears re-housing the Askews would not have been the solution to their problems. It was an option consistently refused by Ms Askew. ‘She liked it where she was, she liked the house, she was near the community centre, she had strong links with the community centre and she had good friends and neighbours around her,’ explains Ms Danaher.

Ms Askew herself says, ‘I didn’t want to move from Hattersley - it’s a nice place,’ before adding thoughtfully, ‘I don’t think that the housing association could have done more than they did’.
‘They came to me and asked me if I’d like to move. I was pig-headed and said, “Why should we move - it’s not us causing the trouble”.’

Less than a month before her son’s death Ms Askew did register for re-housing, citing medical needs. ‘She needed something on one level,’ recalls Ms Danaher. Ms Askew wanted herself and her two sons to move together, but remain in Hattersley. The only suitable accommodation was due for completion later in 2010, leaving the family in their home on Melandra Crescent in the meantime.

Council officers from the Hattersley Neighbourhood Partnership installed CCTV at the house and Peak Valley provided better lighting to enable the footage to be viewed. Higher fences were provided by both organisations.

‘With hindsight it is easy to see that some of these interventions had unintended negative consequences,’ concludes the SCR. ‘There have been comments from some who saw the TV footage following [Mr Askew’s] death that the house looked like a fortress, possibly increasing its attraction to groups of young people misguidedly seeing “a brick through the window” as a greater challenge.’ Despite improved lighting, the quality of the CCTV images was too poor to act as useful evidence.

Tackling the tormentors

Other measures found more success. Peak Valley issued three anti-social behaviour contracts and one anti-social behaviour order to some of the 26 youths tormenting
Mr Askew. The SCR confirms the association also issued warnings to parents about the risk to their tenancies if their children were identified.

The landlord argues it could do little beyond this on its own. ‘We don’t have the right to intervene directly in the situation that a vulnerable family faces, other than through referral to the police or indeed other agencies,’ says Mr Corris.

Since Mr Askew’s death, just one youth, 19-year-old Kial Cottingham, has been held to account. He was charged with harassing Mr Askew, pleaded guilty and received a 16-week custodial sentence in September 2010.

‘Local residents would very strongly support [the suggestion] that the perpetrators weren’t effectively dealt with through the courts,’ comments Peak Valley’s Ms Danaher.

Perhaps her neighbours would expect Ms Askew would want her son’s tormentors locked up, but she’s not so sure: ‘Is prison the answer?’ she asks. She also questions the effectiveness of other measures designed to tackle anti-social behaviour. ‘One [of the youths] was told not to come anywhere near us, but he came round two days after. I don’t think ASBOs have much influence on them.’

Instead Ms Askew suggests parents and teachers should teach children to understand more about learning difficulties. ‘They needed to explain that it wasn’t David’s fault he was the way he was,’ she says.

One important final point, however, is raised by the SCR, as it tries to identify why Mr Askew was so reluctant to identify his tormentors. It finds this could have been partly due to ‘the undercurrent from family members and the local community that he brought trouble on himself’. ‘References are made to him “egging lads on”, taking retaliatory actions, and shouting without provocation,’ it states.

Community welfare

In April 2007 Mr Askew was banned from one of his favourite places, the betting shop on the precinct. That September, after a meeting with Peak Valley, the SCR report says he ‘received a letter, which to all intents and purposes is an acceptable behaviour contract’. There is no suggestion in evidence from the agencies that Mr Askew, who couldn’t read, had the capacity to understand an acceptable behaviour type of contract. ‘The letter went to the tenant, which was his mother, and there was a meeting to explain the letter to her and David,’ responds Mr Corris.
When asked whether the housing association was right to have effectively treated Mr Askew as part of the problem, he explains that Peak Valley ‘received complaints from other residents in close proximity to David’s house about some of his behaviour, so clearly we had to take some action - albeit fairly low-level action with the family to address that’.

‘His behaviour was wholly inappropriate at times,’ he adds. ‘Clearly we’ve got to safeguard the interests of all residents in our community, and we did actually take action through the tenancy agreement to address that behaviour.’

Finally, the review asks whether Mr Askew’s death was ‘predictable and preventable’. Since it was his undetected health problems that killed him so suddenly, it concludes successfully tackling his tormentors would not have been enough.

‘His need for protection as an individual was, at times, clouded by the agencies’ focus on family and locality issues,’ the SCR states. If, perhaps, the multi-agency actions recommended both in the IPCC and SCR reports had been taken, and his health had been better addressed, he would still be alive.

After Mr Askew’s death, his mother and her eldest son agreed to move to a two-bedroom bungalow just a few hundred yards from their previous home. The move went well and they’re comfortable. ‘David would have liked it here,’ Ms Askew says. ‘When he died it took away half of my life. He was very helpful and gentle. I should hate to think anybody else should have to go through some of the things he did.’