Angus Council has sacked three employees following an investigation into the death of a 74-year-old woman.
Yvonne Carrie was found dead at her home in the village of Inveraldie in October. Her family complained that she had twice contacted the council’s community alarm service but no help was sent to her.
Four staff were swiftly suspended as senior managers began looking into the tragedy. No details of the identities or roles of the sacked staff have been released.
A council spokeswoman confirmed: “The inquiry is still ongoing. Of the four members of staff who were suspended, three have been dismissed and one has returned to duty.”
The dismissals came as a shock to Mrs Carrie’s family, who had not been informed by the council. Her granddaughter Lynne Wilson said she and her relatives were still waiting for a full account of the circumstances surrounding her death.
“We still don’t know anything about what happened that night we don’t know if they chose to ignore her,” she said. “The council have not told us anything.”
The family has been in touch with the procurator fiscal and is waiting for a decision on whether or not a fatal accident inquiry will be held.
Mrs Carrie lived alone at her house in Inveraldie, just off the A90 north of Dundee. She had health problems and occasionally used the community alarm service to summon help. Staff would often alert her son Brian, who lives in the village.
The system is monitored from a control room in Kirriemuir. When a user presses the alarm trigger, an operator is alerted and can speak to the person.
Depending on the circumstances, the operator can then provide reassurance, contact a relative, neighbour or friend and ask them to visit, contact a GP or the emergency services, or send one of the service’s own response workers to help.
Mrs Carrie’s daughter Eileen had spoken to her about 9pm on the night she died. The family later learned she had triggered the alarm twice shortly after that.
However, nobody from the family was contacted and they understood that nobody else was sent to her home.
A care worker found Mrs Carrie dead the next morning, after succumbing to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
The family only learned that she had contacted the alarm service when they got in touch with the council to let them know she had died.
Since then they have been waiting for answers from the investigation and feel they are still waiting.
Lynne said she had heard informally that staff had been sacked, but when she phoned the council last week she was told it could not say anything.
The family had asked the council for access to copies of voice recordings of conversations between Mrs Carrie and alarm service staff, and also any documents relevant to the case. Lynne said the council had declined to provide these.
She said, “We are obviously not important to their investigation, they made that clear.”
The council has previously said it will meet the family once its investigation is concluded.