The Moral State We’re In. Julia Neuberger

had led him to ‘misinterpret’ what he had seen. Despite the official exoneration of the charge nurse, the other staff continued to threaten to walk out if Callanan and Ramirez were allowed back and the local branch of COHSE (Confederation of Health Service Employees, as it then was) voted to recommend Callanan’s expulsion from the union.

      Callanan and Ramirez were offered a deal: they could return to work if they were prepared to accept, sight unseen, the internal investigation’s findings and a new procedure for making complaints. The students agreed to the complaints procedure in principle, but could not agree to accept the internal investigation’s results without having seen it.

      On the Royal College of Nursing’s advice, the pair took their concerns to the Beaumont Committee, which Surrey Area Health Authority had set up to look more widely at conditions in mental institutions. A string of staff witnesses defended the charge nurse, both to the Beaumont Committee and to the General Nursing Council Disciplinary Committee, to which Callanan had referred the case. But the strength of the students’ evidence did convince a lot of outsiders. In February 1980, a year after the abuse was first witnessed by Ken Callanan, the charge nurse was finally struck off the General Nursing Council’s register, after five charges of ill treatment and drug abuse were found proven. He was dismissed from Brookwood. In April, the Beaumont Committee upheld the students’ allegations, saying that the pressure they had been put under by fellow and senior staff and the union was deplorable. Art Ramirez left Brookwood and trained elsewhere. Ken Callanan became an ambulance man, a great loss to mental nursing.

      We see the same pattern in inquiry after inquiry. A few brave staff members–people of great conscience, who are prepared to take risks with their own livelihoods and reputations for the sake of others–tell the authorities what they have seen and heard, but it rarely does them any good. Few of them ever reach any kind of senior position, even after allegations are proven.