What happened
On 7 April 2008, Phillip Ellison, 47, a community support worker with Lancashire County Council, was visiting a house on Glebe Close in Fulwood, Preston. The house was part of a supported-living scheme for people with mental health problems, owned by the Places for People housing group and run with Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust.
That morning he became so concerned about the service user that he rang the man’s doctor to bring his next appointment forward. Within two hours he was found inside the house with stab wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police were called shortly before 11.30am. Robert Searle, a resident of the scheme, was detained at the scene under section 2 of the Mental Health Act.
The outcome
Searle, 52 at his plea, pleaded guilty at Preston Crown Court to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Judge Anthony Russell QC imposed a hospital order under the Mental Health Act 1983, calling it a “particular tragedy”. Searle was detained at Ashworth high security hospital.
Lancashire County Council said it would carry out a “very thorough” review with Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust into the risk assessments. No prevention of future death report is recorded in the sources read.
What went wrong
The concern existed, in the right person, hours before the killing. Councillor Chris Cheetham said the inquiry would look at “whether the correct risk assessments were carried out”. That question had been answered that morning by the worker himself, and the answer did not change the plan.
The union’s regional officer, Neil Linsky, made the practical point: where there is danger, you sometimes get two workers going.
Supported living puts one worker inside one house with one exit, on an ordinary residential street. The sources do not record a second person on this visit, a check-in call, or any trigger that would have stopped it once the worker’s own assessment had changed.
What it teaches
A worker’s concern is risk information, and it has to be able to stop the job. Ellison did the right thing by ringing the GP. The system’s task was to catch that call and ask whether the visit should go ahead alone.
A lone-working policy needs an override that a worker can pull without an argument: a change in presentation means a doubled visit, or no visit until it has been assessed. If the override depends on a manager being free at nine in the morning, it is not an override.
The scheme itself concentrates risk: several residents, one worker on shift, and no second pair of hands.
Questions for the room
- Ellison flagged rising risk to a GP that morning. Where would that have been picked up in your service?
- What in your policy should force a doubled visit, and who enforces it on the day?
- What should happen when a worker does not sign in, and when was that last tested?
- If your scheme has one worker on shift, what is the plan for a second incident that morning?
Evidence and limits
Confidence: confirmed. Four sources were read: BBC News and the Guardian, both April 2008, and two vault archive texts of local press reporting. They agree on the date, the place, the plea and the sentence. Reports gave his age as 51 and 52; this page says 52 at his plea. The sources describe the scheme as run jointly with the NHS trust; the case record says it was owned by Places for People and run by the council. No inquiry report appears in the sources.
Our lone working training covers the visit that should not go ahead.
Sources
- BBC News, April 2008 · http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/lancashire/8017418.stm
- The Guardian, 8 April 2008 · https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/apr/08/ukcrime.socialcare
- Vault archive, “Care worker’s killing was manslaughter”, 2008
- Vault archive, “Social worker is stabbed to death”, 2008
Reviewed 20 October 2026.