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Gloria Foster death
A family photo of Gloria Foster taken in 1980. She died in February this year after being left without care in her Banstead home for nine days. Photograph: Family Handout/PA
A family photo of Gloria Foster taken in 1980. She died in February this year after being left without care in her Banstead home for nine days. Photograph: Family Handout/PA

Woman, 81, left to starve after immigration raid on care company

This article is more than 10 years old
In nine days following the raid and closure of the care agency, the local authority failed to visit Gloria Foster, who later died

Gloria Foster, 81, a frail widow with dementia, was entirely dependent on four daily visits from carers, who fed her, helped her get out of bed and gave her medicine. But for nine days in January she was left to starve after an immigration raid on the private care company contracted to look after her.

Somehow in the days following the raid and closure of the agency Carefirst24, the local authority forgot about her. She was discovered on a chance visit by a district nurse and taken to hospital, where she died in early February.

The first stage of inquiries into how her death was allowed to happen concluded on Thursday, with Surrey police announcing that their investigation would not lead to criminal charges – a decision that left Mrs Foster's friends unhappy and anxious for answers about who should be held responsible.

A close friend, Vivien Saunders, a former British golf champion, said the decision not to pursue criminal charges seemed "fairly extraordinary". "Someone was totally neglectful and negligent," she said, adding that she saw the failure to care for Mrs Foster as "criminal negligence".

She warned that the decision not to prosecute would provide "a precedent for people getting away with providing no care or bad care".

"I wonder if the answer would have been the same if this had involved a disabled person or a child abandoned in this way," she said. "There are more questions that need to be answered."

Ann Penston, another friend, commended the police investigation, but said she hoped that the inquiry from Surrey county council would provide a more detailed examination of how Mrs Foster came to be forgotten. "I am angry with whoever is responsible," she said. "It shouldn't be swept under the carpet."

Mrs Foster, from Banstead, Surrey, was discovered starving, very dehydrated, covered in bed sores, with a weak pulse, and suffering from kidney failure, when a district nurse paid a chance visit to her home, nine days after the UK Border Agency raid. She was admitted to Epsom hospital but died there 11 days later.

Carefirst24 was contracted by local authorities to provide care to elderly people in Surrey and the London borough of Sutton. Police and the UK Border Agency (UKBA) raided Carefirst24's Surrey offices on 15 January after allegations that the firm was employing illegal immigrants.

UKBA officials held two meetings with Sutton and Surrey councils before the raid to give them time to make alternative arrangements for clients. A list of clients taken during the raid, understood to be a comprehensive list of everyone on the company's books, was given to the councils afterwards.

A police statement issued on Thursday said: "Surrey police were called in to investigate any possible criminal offences after Surrey county council did not provide alternative care provision for Mrs Foster. Following a thorough investigation, officers met with the Crown Prosecution Service, and having received their advice, it was determined that there is no criminal case to answer."

A Surrey county council spokesman said: "Our thoughts remain very much with Mrs Foster's family and friends. Now the police inquiry has ended an independent investigator will continue a review of the actions of all the agencies involved to ensure everything possible is done to avoid a tragedy like this happening again."The senior investigating officer, Detective Chief Inspector Mark Preston, said that the full findings of the three-month investigation would be given to Surrey county council "to assist them in ensuring that the circumstances of Mrs Foster's tragic death are never replicated".

A postmortem established that the cause of death was pulmonary thromboembolism and deep vein thrombosis, the police statement said.

Mrs Foster had no children but her friends and more distant family are still waiting for an inquest to be held and for the publication of a Safeguarding Adults Board report from Surrey county council.

Former Surrey council leader Andrew Povey, who has taken an active interest in the case, said: "Someone, somewhere should take accountability for what happened."

Saunders said Foster had gradually retreated from the company of her friends, but had been well cared for by the company before it was closed down.

"She was very tall, and elegant and glamorous and then she had a slight stroke and it seemed that she felt a bit ashamed of people visiting her," she said. "People asked 'Where were all her friends?' But there are people who don't always want people seeing them when they are frail and ill. There were 60 people at her funeral. She had many friends."

She was anxious to make sure that a full inquiry established responsibility. "It was such a terrible thing to happen. Nobody deserves that."

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