Hidden Cameras. Joe Plomin

fobbed off (as she saw it) with what she says were pat answers from care workers, like ‘Oh your nan is just confused.’ She thinks that in future other families need to listen to their own gut feelings more, if they know something is wrong.

      Vanessa only did her secret filming after she concluded all other options had failed. She is a model of good practice, really. The fact that she wishes that she had pushed harder in all ways and all directions is a testament to the same truth that this book is aiming at: we can all do secret filming better.

      It is good, though sad, that Vanessa felt she did have to use secret cameras.

      Her hidden camera captured one harrowing hour on a Saturday night when her grandmother became increasingly desperate for the toilet after a cup of tea. She needed the toilet. She called out asking for help – she could not get there on her own. She waited, and then she cried out again. And again. No one came. Despite being just opposite the nursing station, it took more than an hour for a member of staff to come into her room. On that Saturday night, Vanessa’s grandmother called out ‘nurse’ 321 times, pleaded for the toilet 45 times and banged her cup on 26 occasions before anyone checked on her – and even then, after she had been checked on, Yvonne was still left waiting longer for the toilet, becoming increasingly and clearly desperate.

      Yvonne Grant pleading with a care worker

      Source: BBC (2014) Panorama: Behind Closed Doors: Elderly Care Exposed. BBC1, 30 April (21:00 hrs). Copyright © BBC

      Vanessa told us:

      It was heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking. My nan should have been getting good care from the day she went in there; it’s what everyone should be getting. It shouldn’t take them to be worried that I might have a camera in there – ‘so we’d better go in there and give good care just in case’ – that they never know if the camera’s going to be there or not. It shouldn’t take that.

      The owners of the care home, HC-One, told BBC Panorama when that film was broadcast:

      The failings in the care of Mrs Yvonne Grant, and the behaviour of a number of members of staff at the home at that time, were completely unacceptable. The level of care Mrs Grant received at Oban House during that period was simply not good enough and did not meet the standards that HC-One, as a responsible provider, expects of all our staff at all our homes. We deeply regret these failings and we apologised to Mrs Grant and her family members as soon as they came to light.

      By the time our film broadcast – some time after Vanessa’s secret recording – the care home met all necessary standards, and HC-One said that they took ‘a great many steps to improve the standards of care’, including working ‘with the new management and staff at the home, and with the active involvement of residents and relatives to implement a significant number of improvements’.

      Other people around the world using hidden cameras have not always handled their discoveries as well as Vanessa did. One case that I have only read about, where I do not know personally the people involved, really illustrates the dangers involved when people do their own secret filming.

      In that case, in 2014 in Uganda, a non-governmental organisation’s employee, Eric Kamanzi, found bruises on his 18-month-old daughter. Rather than confronting his 22-year-old maid, Jolly Tumuhirwe, he installed hidden cameras.

      What he filmed was shocking, but what happened after that illustrates how much better prepared everyone needs to be for people doing their own secret filming.

The video footage captured by Kamanzi was broadcast on websites around the world. It shows the maid beating and kicking his daughter.1 From prison, Tumuhirwe said that she was sorry, that Kamanzi’s wife sometimes slaps the child and that she was more angry than normal that day because her father was ill.2

      Kamanzi allegedly beat Tumuhirwe ‘to a pulp’ when he saw the footage. Given the severity of the assault on his daughter, some parents will excuse him, but that is not how justice should be administered and, worse, it meant that, of course, he was the one who was arrested, at least initially. Ugandan police were then presented with his covert footage. The police now had to decide what to do with such a mixed set of assaults – one on a child and one on the maid – before finally deciding to pursue Tumuhirwe, not Kamanzi.

      People using covert recorders need to think very carefully about how they will react – and hopefully how they will control themselves – if they do film bad events, to prevent themselves from doing wrong and becoming the person who gets arrested. Hopefully, in future, people in such a position will prepare themselves better for the issues that they may have to face.

      NOTES

1.Gillman, O. (2014) ‘Ugandan maid who sparked outrage when she was filmed stomping on toddler is jailed for four years.’ Available at www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2874502/Ugandan-maid-sparked-outrage-filmed-stomping-toddler-jailed-four-years.html#ixzz3NOD7 xt2z, accessed on 25 July 2015.

2.Nehanda Radio (2014) ‘Uganda “monster maid” explains why she beat up child.’ Available at http://nehandaradio.com/2014/11/29/uganda-monster-maid-explains-beat-child/#sthash.rbLXAArq.dpuf, accessed on 25 July 2015.