Judge demands written report on teen’s care

A circuit court judge has given the HSE two weeks to compile a written report of its proposals to provide a regime of continuing care for a brain-damaged teenager.

As reported by the Irish Examiner last week, Judge Gerard Griffin said it was amazing how the HSE could claim it had limited funding for crucial services and yet had no problem in paying €800 an hour to legal teams to represent it in court.

Hearing that the HSE had stopped funding services for Tyrone Crockford, aged 19, who has pleaded guilty to three counts of attempted robbery and one count of using a knife. He had been in HSE care since he was 10 and has psychiatric and psychological difficulties due to a brain injury.

Last week, the judge had told the CEO of the HSE West and Catherine Cunningham, HSE area manager for primary, continuiing and community care for Galway/Roscommon, to appear in court yesterday.

Ms Cunningham was in court yesterday to represent the HSE while its head, John Hennessy, sent a letter of apology stating he was unable to attend.

Ms Cunningham apologised on several occasions to Judge Griffin and said she meant no disrespect to the court for not being there last week and did not realise her presence was required. She said the HSE now had a proposal to deal with his ongoing care.

The court was told Crockford had been in HSE-run foster care at the time of his offending last year and was then getting social worker support for 40 hours each week.

She said he had been assessed by Nua Health Care treatment centre for six months to assess what support he would need when he was released into the community and the HSE had funded this.

“At present, we are in the process of getting a self-contained apartment ready for him and we will continue to give him 40 hours of assistance after that,” she said.

In response to a recommendation from psychiatrist Sally Linehan, who had told Ms Cunningham by letter that Tyrone should remain at Nua, Ms Cunningham said in court that the HSE had to work within a limited budget and it did not have the €300,000 to provide this service to one individual.

“We would have to reduce services for many, many other vulnerable people in our care. But I understand it is up to the court where he lives.”

Ms Cunningham said she hoped the proposal she had come up with where Crockford would receive therapeutic supports while in custody and supervised accommodation on his release, would not set a precedent.

Judge Griffin said he was aware of the HSE’s funding difficulties, but last week he had been confronted with very stark reports from three psychiatrists and a fourth report from Dr Linehan, which stated Crockford posed a very high risk of re-offending in the absence of the structure provided in the Nua Health Centre.

The judge directed Ms Cunningham to put her proposals in writing and submit them within one week to Crockford’s defence team, and that they in turn, “run” the proposals past Dr Linehan.

Judge Griffin told her: “I was facing the position last week that either I dump him in prison or I dump him back onto the street. I’m not doing any dumping on the street because Dr Linehan states he is at a very high risk of further offending. The women of Salthill and Galway will not be safe from this young man. I’m not prepared to dump him in prison either where it is likely he would become more criminalised.”

The matter has been adjourned to Nov 29 to allow the HSE liaise with Dr Linehan and other services involved in Crockford’s care and agree a structure of care for him.