The update from Sloven on their staff disciplinary actions has weighed heavily since we received it.

I sit in the Justice Shed surrounded by LB ‘stuff’. He’s woven through the fabric of our home, hearts and lives in ways that are both visible (in bus and related memorabilia (is that the right word?) and through the memories/thoughts and laughter we (and this space) constantly evoke. I’ve said recently how much he’d expect and enjoy many aspects of the #JusticeforLB campaign. The buses and lorry named after him. The police and HSE involvement. The human rights legal team. The inquest process and Divine Comedy tweet. Norman Lamb talking about ‘Connor’s law’ at the Lib Dem Spring conference.

His death has captured so much of his imagined future. A future we never really imagined.

He would be enraged by Sloven actions though. They would upset his view of the world. Of the people and organisations you can trust and rely on. Police are good/burglars bad categorisations.

When we told him, that terrible day two years ago tomorrow, that he was going to hospital, he was fairly chilled about the idea. He’d enjoyed visiting his grandad weeks before at the JR. He loved the attention paramedics gave him when he’d had seizures. The NHS was in his good column. When we turned left at the crossroads instead of right, and ended up outside a crappy bungalow where we were almost not allowed in, he became less keen. But it was an NHS hospital (we thought). And even though a few hours later he was subject to violent and extended restraint and then drugging, we thought they must know what they were doing. [I know].

Since the whole foul tale of the Sloven acquisition of the Ridgeway has unfolded (see Chris Hatton’s latest forensic analysis here), Sloven have consistently proved themselves to be at best crap. They really ain’t worthy of the public service label. That’s probably what we’d have said to LB in the end. ‘They ain’t really NHS mate. Just a business pretending to care’.