WHO KILLED KATHLEEN WAUGH?

Barry Wood investigates the unsolved mystery

of the abduction and killing of a handicapped woman, and the matter of a missing £1,878.86

THREE YEARS AGO, Kathleen Waugh was snatched from her bed in Knowl House, a care home for the physically and mentally handicapped supervised. by Tameside Council, Her body was found six weeks later. It had been dumped in a reservoir 25 miles away. No one has been charged with the killing. No one has been able to explain how this severely mentally and physically disabled woman was removed from under the eyes of those paid to protect her, pumped full of drugs she was not supposed to be given, then heaved into freezing water in the evident hope that no one would discover her remains.

The abduction and killing of Kath Waugh ought to have caused an outcry. But noth- ing — or almost nothing — has happened. There have been several inconclusive inquiries, but no arrests, and practically no media interest. As he sits in his council house in Ashton-under-Lyne in front of a three-bar electric fire, Mr Edwin Waugh, her 74-year-old father, cannot shake off the suspicion that the reason his daughter's death has been ignored is that she was not a gorgeous, sensual figure like Rachel Nickell — whose murder sparked one of the most intensive police manhunts in British crimi- nal history — but a 41-year-old handi- capped woman with the mind of a child.

Kath Waugh suffered from cerebral palsy. She was also mentally handicapped. Up until the age of 33 she lived with her parents in a council house. Her sister was also severely disabled. Her father found himself unable to cope with bringing up two handicapped daughters and a nine- year-old grandchild on his own. Kath went to live in Knowl House, a council-run resi- dential home for the severely mentally dis- abled not far from her home.

Kath could only make herself under- stood by hand gestures but she was gentle and trusting. She was unable to go more than a few yards without assistance. She loved soft toys and music, and would sit for hours in her chair gently rocking back and forth to her stereo.

Kath Waugh's family last saw her on Christmas Day 1991 when they took her presents. Her father, and niece Lisa, had spent the morning with her. In the after- noon, her brother Michael and his wife arrived with their present — a wall mirror. As ever, she was cheerful, lively and happy.

At the time, there were only ten residents in the 31-bed home, which was being wound down. Under the Government's Care in the Community scheme, the remaining residents were to be moved out to their own flats in the same neighbourhood.

In November 1991, a month before Kath disappeared, Knowl House was placed under the management of residen- tial service manager Steve Baxter, who Kathleen Waugh together with the deputy officer-in-charge, Jenny Caldwell, and two other officers, shared responsibility for the running of the house. They covered all shifts between them. On the night of 27 December 1991, Jenny Caldwell was on duty until the end of her shift at 10 p.m. when she handed over to two residential care workers, Ann Clayton and Bernadette Jones.

The last visiting parent had left by 9.45 p.m. Ann Clayton was later to recall see- ing Kath sitting up in bed in her pyjamas drinking a cup of tea. That night the fire bell sounded twice. The care workers were later to claim that another resident — Kath's flatmate, Agnes Pashley — had opened the fire door of their flat to let out or call in her cat.

At 9 a.m. on the morning of 28 Decem- ber 1991, a member of the day staff discov- ered Kath was missing and raised the alarm. A search was mounted. It was at that point that the night-shift staff were called back to give a written account of the previous night for the director of social services.

At first it seemed a straightforward miss- ing person's inquiry. The police took state- ments, carried out door-to-door enquiries and checked out possible sightings.

But the Waugh family knew it was some- thing far more serious. Kath could only hobble a few yards and then only with great difficulty and on the shoulder of someone else. That she could have made her way out of the home and disappeared into the night was unthinkable. She had never wandered off before and would not have been aware of where she was outside the home. The window locks on her bedroom were undis- turbed. There had been no untoward distur- bances or sign of break-in. Edwin Waugh and his family could not come up with a sin- gle reasonable explanation for her disap- pearance. The attitude of the council baffled them. From the outset it was emphasised to reporters that the residents were not locked in but were free to come and go. But that was completely beside the point. Kath was unable to manipulate bolts and door handles. She could not have gone off on her own under any circumstances.

It soon became evident that staff were not telling the police the whole story. For besides the staff and residents, there had been someone else inside the home that night. His name was Ian Mills. Mills had been employed on a casual basis by Tame- side Council in a number of their care homes until, after growing concern at his conduct, his contract was not renewed and he was banned from entering the council's homes. Despite this ban, Mills was in the habit of dropping in late at night with the apparent tacit approval of the manage- ment. Exactly why he was let in and what he was doing there has never been fully explained. But the fact that he, and possi- bly others, were there at all did not emerge until 29 January, an astonishing four weeks after the disappearance.

Under rigorous police questioning, Ann Clayton and Bernadette Jones suddenly revealed he had been in the house for an hour before midnight on the last evening Kath was seen alive. One told the inquest that they had both been told not to men- tion this by their boss, Jenny Caldwell.

The delay was critical. It was just one of a number of crucial pieces of information deliberately withheld by staff for a month, during which time the trail was allowed to go cold. The police were furious.

As the investigation continued, the detectives were to make other disturbing discoveries about Knowl House. The han- dling of dangerous drugs there was a corn- plete shambles. Instead of being locked away, dangerous drugs were missing or scattered throughout the house, even in the patients' cupboards. Record-keeping was virtually non-existent and the drugs were often administered by untrained staff.

And residents were routinely given drugs which had not been prescribed for them. Kath was a poor sleeper and some- times would wake up several times during the night. Staff were to describe how Jenny Caldwell would sedate her with Largactil, the notorious 'liquid cosh' doled out to dif- ficult patients in psychiatric hospitals in the bad old days. On two or three occa- sions she also gave Kath doses of the drug Melleril — another sedative which had not been prescribed to her.

The police were to uncover other aspects of Kath's care at Know' House that were to puzzle and concern her family. Before her death nearly £4,000 had been taken from bank accounts which were in Kath Waugh's name but were controlled by staff at Knowl House. Of 43 withdrawals between 28 April 1988 and 23 December 1991, a total of £3,902.02 had been taken out. The social services department failed to provide any explanation or furnish any receipts to justi- fy the spending of £1,878.86 of this money. The frequent withdrawals for £100 to £250 puzzled the Waugh family. Money had no meaning for Kath Waugh. Even the sim- plest transaction was beyond her. Her meals and everything else she needed were provided for her, so why were such large sums being removed from her account? What were they spent on? No explanation was forthcoming.

Police began to put together a shocking picture of the staffs incompetence, lazi- ness and disregard for the interests of their care home's resident. The 'carers' were riven with cliques and favouritism. Casual jobs seemed to be awarded under the old pals act rather than on any other basis. Excursions and trips seemed to be tailored towards the convenience and interest of the care staff. One included an extended jaunt to a local gay club.

The missing person's inquiry turned into a murder hunt on 15 February 1992, when Kath Waugh's body was found by a walker and his son in the Derwent reservoir in Derbyshire nearly 25 miles away from the home. She could not possibly have got there on her own. The detectives' belief that she had been abducted was now established beyond a shadow of a doubt. Kath Waugh was last seen sitting up in bed in her pyja- mas but she was found with trainers on her feet. Kath could not tie her shoelaces on her own. Who had tied them for her?

An autopsy revealed she had been alive at least until between 6 a.m. and 12 mid- day the morning after she was taken from Knowl House. More significantly, traces of two powerful sedatives, temazepan and amitryptyine, were found in her blood- stream. Neither was prescribed to Kath though both were routinely given out to other residents in Knowl House. Amitryp- tyine was prescribed to Kath's flatmate Agnes Pashley, but enough of it was dis- covered in Kath's bloodstream to be potentially fatal. She could not have taken the drug by herself — her palsied hands meant she would even be incapable of opening the bottle. Who had given it to her? The precise cause of death was impossible to establish because the body had been in the water for so long.

Jenny Caldwell was arrested by police in mid-March. Accompanied by her solicitor, she refused to answer any of their ques- tions for a total of 12 hours. She and three other care staff members were immediate- ly suspended by Tameside social services, which launched its own investigation into the matter. That inquiry did not seek to get to the bottom of the mystery surround- ing the death of Kath Waugh. It was limit- ed to looking at standards of care and cover within Knowl House.

At the inquest on Kath's death in Octo- ber 1992, one vitally important witness refused to attend. The former manager Steve Baxter had taken retirement from the social services department on health grounds months after the disappearance, and moved to Orkney. He was not staying at Knowl House on the night that Kath went missing and there is no suggestion that he would have known more about what happened. But he could have given valuable information about the running of the house and the way drugs were adminis- tered. The coroner offered to pay for his flight, but Mr Baxter still declined to attend the inquest. In a written statement, he admitted there were inadequacies in the handling of drugs. He said it was not his responsibility to be involved in the day-to- day running of the home.

Ian Mills did give evidence to the coro- ner. He said despite the ban on his visiting the care house, he often popped in to say hello to staff 'as a way of unwinding after his work'. Prowlers had been a problem at the house, he said, and he had once chased after but failed to catch one.

A care assistant told the inquest that Jenny Caldwell gave Kath Waugh drugs `when there was no need'. Mrs Caldwell denied she had disregarded the rules on drugs. She said she gave drugs to Kath to stop her bed-wetting. She never knew that one was an anti-depressant. She had not believed it wrong to allow care assistants to administer drugs and she also denied Kath had been given unnecessary drugs. The coro- ner was scathing. He ruled that the adminis- tration of drugs was carried out by untrained staff in a 'flagrant breach' of council rules.

He concluded that Kath had either died in Knowl House and her body had been moved, or she had died soon after she left Knowl House. Recording an open verdict, he ruled that Kath had been unlawfully killed by an unknown person and com- mented, 'I can only hope that someone, some day can find the answers that the police and this inquest have failed to do and bring the person who knows the dark secret of this disappearance to justice.'

The council's sole response was to announce a tightening up of procedures relating to the administration of drugs in council-run homes, so the staff would be better trained and better supervised.

After an internal inquiry by Tameside social services Jenny Caldwell was fired for `gross misconduct' on 27 November 1992. A second recommendation that two other care workers on duty the night Kath disap- peared be dismissed was rejected by the director of social services, Mr Michael Leadbetter; he issued them with final writ- ten warnings instead.

In a carefully worded statement, the social services department expressed sym- pathy for the Waugh family but stopped well short of accepting any responsibility for what happened to Kath Waugh. They strongly emphasised the inquest's conclu- sion that there was no evidence that Kath- leen died from a drug administered on council premises. They omitted to mention that this was because decomposition of the body prevented an examination from finding any evidence at all capable of resolving that question. The council also omitted to mention that if council employ- ees had not withheld information from the police for several weeks, the situation might have been very different.

The council's statement also carefully avoided any hint of an apology. 'The death of Kathleen Waugh was a shock to every- one concerned and the council's sympathy goes out to her family. However, both the cause and the circumstances of her death remain a mystery . . .' An internal council audit was to dismiss the question of Kath's missing money. 'In the absence of records to substantiate the expenditure of £1,878.86 it is not possible to confirm whether this money was properly applied for Miss Waugh's benefit. However, no evidence has been uncovered which indi-

cates her funds were misappropriated.'

From the very beginning the response of the social services exasperated anyone who tried to get to the bottom of the affair. Just like the Waugh family and the police, elect- ed councillors found they were met by an impenetrable shroud of silence. 'It was just complete shutdown,' said one former mem- ber of the Social Services committee. 'We just could not get anything out of them.' The police investigation ran into the sand. After examining the police report, the Crown Prosecution Service said there was not enough evidence to prosecute. Short of a sudden confession from someone in the know, that is where the matter rests.

The affair still rankles some inside the Tameside social services department. Last November the incoming new chairman of the social services committee, Councillor John Taylor, expressed anger at what he felt was departmental complacency at what had happened to Kath Waugh. He managed to get the council to launch another inquiry into events at the home, this time to be carried out by an indepen- dent outside agency. Only days after Councillor Taylor began making fresh inquiries, anonymous phone threats were made to a former care assistant at the home and to the home of Councillor Tay- lor. In the middle of the night, two unidentified men shouted threats at the care home workers and daubed ketchup on the windows at Knowl House. The new inquiry has been completed. It has not yet been placed before the full council, but it has shown the shortcomings in the running of council homes were far worse than any- one had suspected. `Positively For The Disabled' are the words featured impressively — if meaning- lessly — on all Tameside Council newspa- per advertisements. But, in fact, the council's first concern has been their own. A full three years after Kath Waugh was killed, the social services department has embarked on a massive course of 'coun- selling' to help council staff and former fel- low residents come to terms with the tragedy. But the council has not offered the victim's father one word of apology. Mr Edwin Waugh has not even been offered the 'counselling' session that the depart- ment deemed so necessary for its staff.

An internal police review of the investi- gation is also currently being carried out from Stretford police station. The police are reluctant to make any comment on what is an embarrassing inquiry.

A police spokesman said he did not want the affair stirred up again. He said he had to think of the feelings of the family. That comment brought gasps of exasperation from the Waugh family. For years they have tried in vain to stir up as much action as they can. They would have welcomed further police action.

Three years after the tragedy, many of the people involved have moved on. The former director of Tam eside social ser- vices, Michael Leadbetter, landed a bigger job with a higher salary and more responsi- bility running the social services depart- ment in Essex. Jenny Caldwell and Ian Mills are said to be working in a private nursing home in north Manchester. And Steve Baxter — the manager who presided over Knowl House and who refused to attend the inquest — has returned from his northern fastness after having presumably made a recovery from the illness which forced him to retire from his Tameside job. He is now working for a neighbouring local authority — running a residential care home in Oldham.

This Wednesday, Mr Edwin Waugh and his sons Michael and Humphrey and his grand-daughter Lisa will make the 25-mile- journey drive from their home in Ashton under Lyne to the picturesque beauty of Derwent Water. There, away from the small groups of sightseers, they will lay a few flowers to the memory of Kathleen.

Barry Wood is the author of A Blood Betrayal -- the inside story of the Jersey murders (HarperCollins).