What happened
On 27 December 2018 a 25-year-old support worker attended a pre-arranged meeting at the Edinburgh flat of a service user, Albert Caballero, 46, who had additional support needs. Her employer, The Action Group, supports people with additional needs at home.
When she moved to leave, the door was locked. He blocked her exit, pushed her to the floor and held her down. He then raped her.
She got out, and he followed her to the car. She called her manager, who met her at Leith police station.
The outcome
On 26 June 2019, at the High Court in Edinburgh, Caballero admitted abducting, assaulting and raping her. He was jailed for eight years.
The Crown Office referred the case to the HSE, which found The Action Group had failed to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risk he posed to female employees, or to identify measures to reduce it on home visits.
The investigation found a history and a recent escalation of inappropriate behaviour towards staff, and reports were not recorded, though many staff knew. IOSH records female employees raising safety concerns from March 1994.
The company admitted breaching regulation 3(1)(a) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 and sections 2(1) and 33(1)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, and was fined £20,000.
What went wrong
The HSE’s finding is not that the company failed to predict an attack. It is that it never turned what staff knew into a document anyone could act on.
Concerns raised verbally, about one service user, by many workers, over years, stayed verbal. Nothing required them to be recorded, or a record to become a risk assessment.
The Crown Office’s head of health and safety investigation, Alistair Duncan, said a suitable assessment of the risk to female staff could have prevented it. HSE inspector Kerry Cringan said the same.
Afterwards the company wrote a lone working policy, issued tracking smartphones through the PeopleSafe app, and reviewed risk assessments for every service user.
What it teaches
What staff notice is the raw material of a risk assessment, and most services have no route that turns one into the other.
A pattern matters more than an incident. One worker finding a service user’s behaviour inappropriate is a note. Five workers over a decade is a finding, and it only becomes one if somebody is counting. The Action Group had the count in its people and not on its paper.
The visit is the second lesson. A pre-arranged meeting in a flat, with a door that locks behind the worker and nobody expecting a call, has no control in it beyond the worker’s judgement. Tracked phones and a policy came after. They should have come before.
Questions for the room
- What have you noticed about a service user that you have not written down, and what stops you?
- When a colleague tells you something concerning about a client, where does it go, and who reads it?
- On your next visit behind a closed door, who knows where you are and when to expect you out?
Evidence and limits
Confidence: confirmed. Four independent sources were read in full, the Crown Office, Scottish Legal News, IOSH Magazine and Edinburgh News, which agree on the fine, the charges and the findings.
The woman is not named, and nothing here identifies her beyond her age and role, both in the public reporting. The man is named because he was convicted and sentenced.
The sources also do not say who decided that a female worker would visit him alone.
Our lone working training covers how a pattern of concern becomes a written assessment before the next visit.
Sources
- COPFS, 2021 · https://www.copfs.gov.uk/about-copfs/news/care-company-sentenced-for-failings-that-led-to-lone-worker-s-rape/
- Scottish Legal News, 2021 · https://www.scottishlegal.com/articles/edinburgh-care-company-fined-after-lone-worker-abducted-and-raped-by-client
- IOSH Magazine, 24 September 2021 · https://www.ioshmagazine.com/2021/09/24/care-provider-fined-ps20000-after-employee-rape
- Edinburgh News, 2021 · https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/crime/edinburgh-care-firm-fined-ps20k-for-workers-rape-ordeal-3392236
Reviewed 20 October 2026.