Neither used the force that injured him. Both were convicted.

Two former nurses were convicted over the ill-treatment of a patient with severe learning disabilities. One failed to intervene; the other falsified the record.

What happened

Muckamore Abbey Hospital in County Antrim provides inpatient assessment and treatment for people with severe learning disabilities and mental health needs. The Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland began prosecuting staff there in 2021, with decisions against eight individuals on a police file covering alleged ill-treatment and wilful neglect at the Cranfield psychiatric intensive care unit.

By October 2024 a further seven had been prosecuted, bringing the total to 15, for offences including ill-treatment, wilful neglect, making a false entry and false imprisonment. The PSNI calls it the biggest criminal adult safeguarding case of its kind in the UK. On 4 August 2026 two former nurses were sentenced at Antrim Magistrates’ Court, sitting in Ballymena, for separate incidents involving the same patient.

The outcome

Stacey Cooke-Milne, 36, was given four months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years. Bronagh Agnew, 35, was given five months, suspended for two years. District Court Judge Nigel Broderick suspended the sentences, citing their clear records, their remorse and delays in bringing the cases. He called the offending very serious, aggravated by the breach of trust, and said the victim had been extremely vulnerable.

Cooke-Milne had pleaded guilty to three charges of wilful neglect and ill-treatment in June and July 2017. Agnew contested her case and was convicted of wilful neglect and falsifying a record over an incident in May 2017.

Both women face being struck off as nurses, the court was told; that is not recorded as concluded.

What went wrong

In Cooke-Milne’s case the court watched CCTV of another nurse dragging the agitated patient across the floor by the arm while she looked on. Her offence was failing to intervene or to record what her colleague did. She also pulled him by the arms in a separate incident.

Agnew stood by while significant force was applied to the patient by a different healthcare worker, including a knee in his back, and his head was banged off a wall. She then wrote on the patient incident record that he had banged his own head against the wall because he was bored.

What it teaches

The person who does not intervene is part of the restraint. Standing and watching is not neutrality; it is a decision taken in a room where someone else has already decided to use force.

The record written afterwards is part of the same event. A false entry is where a failure to act becomes a false account, and it is an offence of its own. A witness becomes a defendant by writing the account that protects a colleague.

Questions for the room

You see a colleague drag a patient across the floor. What do you do while it is happening, and what do you write afterwards?
You are asked to sign an incident record for something you did not see. What do you say, and to whom?
Fifteen prosecutions from one hospital. What should a manager have seen on those wards years earlier?

Evidence and limits

Confidence: confirmed. A prosecution service statement establishes the decisions to prosecute, a BBC News NI report establishes the total of 15, and a court report of the sentencing establishes the offences and the sentences. The patient is not named, and no injury beyond the force described is set out.

Proceedings are active: cases against others continue. This page is internal only, must not be cited outward, and makes no finding about anyone not convicted. The two people named here were convicted by a criminal court; the colleagues whose conduct they watched were not, and are described by role only.

Our vulnerable and volatile persons training covers the decisions around a restraint, including the ones taken by the people watching.

Sources

Reviewed 20 October 2026.