Woman Says Council Care Failures Led to Her Being Raped
Alleged attack took place after she sought help on the internet
'Samantha' (not shown in picture) wishes to remain anonymous. Picture: Pexels
July 1, 2025
A frail elderly woman says she was raped after turning to strangers online for help because care was not put in place by her local council when she came out of hospital.
The woman, who we are naming Samantha to retain her anonymity due to the claim of rape, said she had requested urgent care from Hammersmith and Fulham Council having been sent home from hospital.
Samantha needs help with basic personal care due to her frailties, but she was told she would have to fill out a self-referral form, which she was unable to do.
Desperate, she turned to the internet and organised to have three individuals come and stay, which she said led to the assault.
She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), “I felt devastated. I felt confused. I had paid my taxes for 50 years after working hard and I believed in the social contract, but they betrayed me and left me to rot.”
A spokesperson for Hammersmith and Fulham Council apologised for not providing “the right care sooner”, and said the local authority is reviewing its referral process and providing additional staff training to ensure services are accessible.
Samantha, who has multiple disabilities and is ranked as a five on the Rockwood Clinical Frailty Scale by the NHS, was released from hospital earlier this year and returned to her London flat. She subsequently called Adult Social Care at Hammersmith and Fulham to request urgent support.
She had previously been assessed as needing care by the council though had not required it due to having a family member on-hand to help. The family member, however, was not available when Samantha returned home from hospital and so the urgent care was necessary.
In her first call to the council Samantha was told to fill out a self-referral form which was sent to her over the internet. It was required to be downloaded, printed, filled in by hand and either scanned or posted back, which Samantha could not do, so she rang a second time to request urgent care.
In a recording heard by the LDRS she was told a form could be sent over via the post, which she explained was still not suitable and that she required urgent care within 48 hours.
The Hammersmith and Fulham Council officer told Samantha on the call she was looking to “bypass” the referral process, which she refuted, before she said she would be contacting the Disability Law Service (DLS) and ended the call.
Samantha said that following this, and having spent hours in soiled adult nappies, she went on the internet and offered to pay someone to come round and help.
Three individuals responded, and while they did initially provide support, Samantha said she was raped by one of them in her flat. She said she pressed her Telecare pendant and the police and ambulance attended, before taking her to hospital.
Samantha said she initially reported the incident as sexual assault, but having since gained a better understanding of the legal definition of rape following discussions with a charity supporting her, she has clarified that her allegation is one of rape.
A spokesperson for the Met Police confirmed to the LDRS the force received an allegation of sexual assault.
“The report was thoroughly investigated by detectives from the Met’s Public Protection Team, while providing specialised support to the victim,” they said.
“No arrests were made during the course of the investigation and there are no further lines of enquiry to pursue at this time. Should any further information come to light this will be considered.”
It was during Samantha’s time in hospital that she was contacted by a council safeguarding officer.
She returned home soon after, though feels she has been let down by the council’s response to her request for urgent care and lack of initial communication from safeguarding.
Correspondence from the DLS – which provides free legal advice to disabled people and their carers – to Samantha detailed how the duty to assess someone for care arises as soon as a local authority is made aware of a potential need for support.
The email, seen by the LDRS, continued to note councils have the power to provide urgent interim care when it considers immediate aid is required.
“Your needs appear to meet this threshold as you have said that you have no care and support in place and have had to rely on people you don’t know coming into your home to assist you, which has put you in a very vulnerable and dangerous position,” the DLS wrote. “The urgent support does not have to wait until the end of the assessment and can be provided as soon as they have identified the need.”
Lisa Longstaff, spokesperson for Women Against Rape (WAR) which has been supporting Samantha, said she was made more vulnerable to violence when her request to the council was “refused and she was forced to ask strangers for help with her basic survival needs as a woman with multiple disabilities”.
She added: “Every cut to social care makes older women and women with disabilities more vulnerable to violence. Disabled women are being pushed into dependence on family friends or even strangers for help and often are taken advantage of.”
Samantha told the LDRS she felt suicidal following the alleged incident and has been in contact with the Survivors Trust. “I can’t sleep,” she said. “I have nightmares. I have PTSD. I still believe in men but I don’t believe in this council.”
Samantha recently received a response to a stage two complaint filed with the council regarding its conduct.
An officer found at stage one the local authority had acted appropriately and addressed her claims. Samantha claimed the complaint was then progressed to stage two before she had responded to the stage one findings.
In the stage two report, the council found support could have been offered more promptly by arranging commissioned care from an agency.
The officer reviewing the case wrote: “I have investigated the reason why this did not happen. I consider that the emphasis on the process of having a new referral for each new package of care to capture any new care request was followed too stringently; our manager could have taken a more flexible approach given that you had received formal care services earlier in the year.
“I also found that the manager was concerned by your history of ambivalence to receiving care, and they therefore wanted to ensure that you detailed what your care needs were on this occasion. However, this resulted in care not being offered in a timely manner.”
They said Samantha had experienced inconvenience due to the council’s reliance on a digital-only referral form, and the council is reviewing its referral process. While finding the council acted appropriately in other areas, such as the actions taken by its safeguarding team, £300 was offered as a remedy.
Samantha described the sum to the LDRS as “derisory” and the response as “another pack of lies and excuses”.
She said: “There is no price you can put on rape except to say it will not happen again [to someone else] and to that [end] they have not promised.”
A spokesperson for Hammersmith and Fulham Council said, “We have apologised to Samantha and offered compensation for not providing the right care support sooner. We are reviewing our referral process and staff will have additional training to ensure we are providing residents with an accessible service first time round.
“We contacted Samantha to address the safeguarding concerns raised and all statutory processes were correctly followed. At Samantha’s request, the safeguarding process was closed and no further action was taken.
“Since 2021, Samantha has made several requests for support to the council which she has then cancelled. This includes the recent package of care for light cleaning and reheating of meals which was requested and then cancelled by the resident. We will continue to work with Samantha to offer her support when she needs it.”
Samantha refuted the claim that she cancelled any safeguarding processes, adding no reports were handled to her satisfaction.
“I always cancelled the packages of care in the past because a family member or trusted friend always stepped in to be my carer at the last moment,” she said. “As a victim of domestic violence who has [complex health problems] this is always preferable to having a paid stranger and this council is, or should be, aware of this situation.”
On her present situation, Samantha said, “Because I went to Survivors Trust (and others) I am not suicidal now and am living a new more healed future. I want others to be safe and have access to help also.”
Ben Lynch - Local Democracy Reporter