The death of a teenage girl from Salisbury, who was left alone at a children’s mental health ward by an inexperienced agency worker using fake ID, has been ruled as an unlawful killing by an inquest jury.
Ruth Szymankiewicz was being treated for an eating disorder at Huntercombe Hospital in Berkshire and had been placed under strict one-to-one observation when on February 12 2022, she was left on her own by the member of staff responsible for watching her.
The 14-year-old was able to shut herself in her bedroom at the hospital’s psychiatric intensive care unit – also known as Thames ward – where she self-harmed.
She died two days later at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.
On Thursday, an inquest jury sitting at Buckinghamshire Coroner’s Court returned a conclusion of unlawful killing.
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