Council explains decision to house teenager in homeless hostel where he was found dead

Ben Nelson-Roux was found at Cavendish House hostel, on April 8, 2020, after taking a number of drugs.

Rebecca Whitmore, who was a homeless prevention worker with North Yorkshire County Council, said there were plans to move Ben into accommodation that provides specialist support to young people, but there were no vacancies.

He was provided with accomodation at the Harrogate Borough Council-run hostel after his mother Kate Roux asked him to leave the family home in January 2020, because he had become violent.

She said her son had been struggling with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), severe mental health issues and drug and alcohol abuse since the age of 12.

He had also been exploited by county lines drug dealers, after falling into debt, and coerced into selling Class A drugs.

An inquest into his death heard Ben told the council he was homeless, in January 2020, because his relationship with his mother “had broken down” and he could no longer live at home.

Following an assessment, he was offered accommodation with the Nightstop programme, which allows teenagers to stay with a number of volunteer hosts for up to 14 nights.

Ms Whitmore said he stayed with Nightstop hosts and friends until February 18 but there were “many issues” and he “struggled with the rules”.

Ben refused to be taken into care, but he was provided with accommodation at Stockwell Hostel in Knaresborough and then Cavendish House in Harrogate to prevent him from becoming homeless.

Ms Whitmore said the hostel in Harrogate was seen as a safer option, because there were staff on site 24 hours a day, but the move was temporary and the council were working to find him “suitable” accommodation.

“Ben was a priority, given his age. He was still a priority for accommodation. We just didn’t have any vacancies at the time,” she said.

“We are really limited with resources and we had exhausted the resources that we had.”

Ms Whitmore said councils in North Yorkshire only house children in adult hostels “in very unique circumstances” and when “they don’t want to become looked after”.

The inquest heard that Ben had seen some of the men at the hostel inject drugs, and others were sliding notes under tenants’ doors and offering them substances.

On April 5, three days before Ben’s death, his social worker said he had “reached crisis point” and that he felt “activelty suicidal” and could no longer live in the hostel. He had also been threatened with eviction after being abusive towards staff.

Ben was taken to A&E on April 6, because he fell after taking crack cocaine and diazepam, his mother called for him to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

But doctors and psychiatrists agreed there were no grounds to detain him as he was not suffering from a severe mental health disorder.

Dr David Loveday-Sims, a psychiatrist with the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), told her it was Ben’s “increased use of drugs and alcohol” that was “increasing the risk of harm to himself and others”.

He also said Ben’s accommodation “posed a significant risk” and his mother should consider bringing him home as “a short-term safeguard”.

The teenager was found dead by his mother at Cavendish House on April 8, after he had taken a number of substances, including cocaine, diazepam and ecstasy.

During an earlier hearing, Cheryl Parker, a Substance Abuse Worker who worked with Ben, said he “would have accessed drugs wherever he was living”.

But a rapid review, which was held after Ben’s death and involved a number of safeguarding experts, concluded that teenagers under 18 should no longer be housed in adult hostels.

The inquest continues.