Nurse who sabotaged life-saving equipment jailed for five years

A former nurse who deliberately altered crucial settings on life-saving machines in an intensive-care ward, risking the lives of severely ill patients, was yesterday jailed for five years.

The actions of Amanda Jenkinson, 37, who carried out the medical sabotage in order to discredit her colleagues and promote her own abilities, were described as "unique" by the judge in Nottingham Crown Court, who also criticised her as "wicked" and "selfish".

Jenkinson, who began her nursing career in Gloucester in 1978, was convicted on a majority jury decision of 10-2 of causing grievous bodily harm with intent to Kathleen Temple, 67, at Bassetlaw District General Hospital in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, in 1993. Earlier the jury had cleared her of two other charges of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm to other patients.

Last May, she appeared at a court hearing charged with murdering a 59- year-old patient, Winifred Cashman. The charge was later dropped after a court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to proceed.

Yesterday in court Mr Justice Owen told Jenkinson: " You have been found guilty of an offence which is hard to understand." Although he said there was no suggestion that Jenkinson was suffering from any mental disorder or illness and that she had been fully responsible for her actions, police in Nottingham revealed that Jenkinson was suffering from a psychiatric condition and is believed to have been treated for depression following an abortion in 1982.

Following the court decision North Nottinghamshire Health Authority, which is responsible for Bassetlaw where Jenkinson had worked since 1990, announced that they would be commissioning an independent inquiry. Barbara Meeke, director of the authority, said: "This has been a very traumatic time for patients, staff and relatives. We are now commissioning an independent inquiry to review the circumstances at Bassetlaw hospital during the period in question to see if there are any wider lessons to be learnt."

The investigations surrounding the incidents on the intensive-care unit (ITU) where Jenkinson worked developed into one the largest ever held inside the National Health Service.

In February 1994, one month after Jenkinson was suspended by the hospital, the police were brought in. Their searches widened to eight other hospitals where there had been 57 other unusual incidents involving several hundred patients. Medical files from 1982 taken from all the hospitals where Jenkinson had worked were examined, including Nottingham City Hospital, Gloucestershire Royal, Southmead Hospital in Bristol, John Radcliffe in Oxford, St George's in south London, Central Middlesex, West London, and the Northern General in Sheffield.

Central to the prosecution's case against Jenkinson was the continuing theme that she felt her official nursing grade, D, was too low for her abilities. She changed the setting on ITU machines in order make other staff look incompetent. One witness, Rosa Jones, a nurse at Bassetlaw, described Jenkinson as a "loner". Another colleague, Dr Anthony Dixon, who was in charge of the ITU, said Jenkinson felt her job was beneath her. Her defence counsel's suggestion that although she was truculent and stubborn she was nevertheless "intensely kind to her patients", was clearly not accepted by most of the jury.

Uncovering just what had happened inside the ITU at Bassetlaw was difficult. Police had to establish links between alleged tampering and any deaths of patients. But many patients were already critically ill before they were admitted to intensive care.

During the four-week trial, the court heard how Jenkinson, had altered a ventilator Mrs Temple at Bassetlaw in November 1993. Mrs Temple was admitted to the hospital suffering from chronically obstructed airways. She was put on a ventilator. Initially, there was good progress over 10 days. But late one night Jenkinson switched the breathing control on the ventilator from a high rate to low, leaving her with 0.8 assisted breaths every minute instead of eight. The switch was discovered the next morning and staff alerted. Mrs Temple's condition deteriorated and she died three days later.

Jenkinson claimed that she was not on the four-bed ward at the time and could not have altered the machine.

The court heard that Jenkinson was never slow to criticise her colleagues. Peter Joyce QC, for the prosecution, said that she had stage-managed events in order to manufacture inadequacies and highlight her belief in her own superiority.

Jenkinson was also accused of switching off a machine supplying sedatives to Brenda Joyce, 61, admitted to the unit in December 1993 suffering an asthma attack. The jury accepted Jenkinson's defence that she had not touched the machine.

In another incident in January 1994, Jenkinson was accused of switching off a sedative machine attached to Joyce Charlton. Ms Charlton, a patient at Rampton secure hospital, was admitted with a suspected broken neck. The jury accepted that Jenkinson had not touched this machine either.

Throughout the court case Jenkinson claimed that staff had conspired against her. "They hate my guts," she told the jury.

When the verdict was announced, after the jury had deliberated for eight and a half hours, Anne Rafferty QC, for the defence, said: "It is a very puzzling end to a first-rate nursing career spanning 20 years."