Nevaeh Owen died in March last year
Police are investigating the death of a teenager at a Greater Manchester mental health unit. Nevaeh Owen died in March last year aged 18 after she used a ligature.
At the time, she was under the care of Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust at Oak Ward at Royal Bolton Hospital.
Greater Manchester Police detectives are trying to establish if it should be treated as a homicide case and if offences of corporate manslaughter and/or gross negligence manslaughter may have been committed, the Manchester Evening News has learned.
It is understood the police investigation centres on the actions of senior managers and staff involved in Neveah’s care, as well as the emergency response after she was found unresponsive. It is understood the force is seeking expert opinion via the Crown Prosecution Service’s Complex Case Unit.
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Last August a pre-inquest review at Bolton Coroners’ Court heard Nevaeh died six months after being transferred to the ward.
The family’s legal representatives told the hearing the teenager’s mother and father feared that ‘if Nevaeh remained on Oak Ward she would die’.
The court heard Oak Ward was criticised by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for major safety risks during an inspection in 2022.
Nevaeh’s mother Lynda claims she repeatedly asked for her daughter to be transferred from the ward after she used ligatures multiple times. Neveah died on March 14, 2024.
The family’s legal representatives told the court the CQC had ‘identified quite serious safety concerns’ around ‘ligatures and environmental ligature risks’.
A GMP spokesperson said: “We are investigating aspects into the circumstances surrounding the death of 18-year-old Nevaeh Owen on March 14th 2024 whilst she was an in-patient on an acute mental health unit in Bolton.
“Our investigation is currently in the early stages. We’re supporting Nevaeh’s family and keeping them updated.”
Another further pre-inquest review, scheduled for May 20, has been put back to October while the police investigation continues.
Salli Midgley, chief nurse at Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, said: “I would like to share my sincere condolences to Nevaeh’s family and friends for their loss. This must be an incredibly difficult time for everyone who knew and loved Nevaeh.
“We will continue to cooperate with all agencies investigating the circumstances of Nevaeh’s death and remain open to addressing any further learning and improvement.”
In an interview with the Manchester Evening News last year, Lynda said the Covid lockdown hit her daughter hard, adding: “She found it really difficult being stuck in the house and her confidence went.”
Nevaeh attended school in Bolton, where the family moved in 2019, from Stretford. She struggled with mental ill-health and began self-harming. She later took an overdose and spent 10 days in an induced coma.
She spent time at mental health units elsewhere in Stockport and Prestwich. “She spent the best part of two years in these two units but would come home on leave for part of a day,” Lynda said. “She would love coming home.”
In September 2023 she was admitted to an acute mental health ward at the Rivington suite in the grounds of Bolton Royal Hospital. Lynda said: “The decision was taken that she had to go to adult services because she was turning 18 – she could no longer stay in CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services).
“I begged them not to send her to a general acute ward because she had spent two years plus on such wards and they are supposed to be stepping stones to getting you where you need to be. Both myself and Nevaeh felt another acute ward would not benefit her. She kind of felt it was like wasting time.”
Lynda, 38, who has two other children, with her husband, Anthony, 41, said: “Every day while she was on Oak Ward there were incidents. She was doing ligatures every day.”
In a bid to get her daughter transferred from the ward, Lynda and Nevaeh, with the help of a solicitor, requested and got a tribunal to consider their request. “The tribunal recommended that Nevaeh should be moved from that ward,” she said. “But they can only make a recommendation, they can’t enforce it, and she stayed on the ward.”
Lynda said her daughter became anxious at the prospect of a weekly ward round when she would be seen by a consultant. She said her daughter continued to self-harm regularly. Five days before she died Nevaeh used a suspended ligature and had to be cut down by Oak Ward staff.
On March 13 Lynda spoke to her daughter for the last time on the phone. The next day she again used a suspended ligature, which proved fatal.
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