Care provider is fined £650 000 over safety failings that led to patient’s death

Priory Healthcare has been fined £650 000 for safety failings over the death of a patient who escaped from a mental health unit and was hit by a train.

Matthew Caseby, 23, left Priory Hospital Woodbourne in Birmingham in 2020 by climbing over a fence in the courtyard area. A day later he was hit by a train at Birmingham’s University railway station. He had been detained under the Mental Health Act after reports that he had been running on railway tracks near Oxford five days before his death.

At Birmingham Magistrates Court, Priory Healthcare pleaded guilty to one offence of failing …