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Vulnerable children continue to be barred from living at a care home owned by glamour model and reality TV star Ampika Pickston, after a judge ruled that it had a “very serious history of failure in a very short time” – during which all four of its juvenile girl residents had been removed for their own safety.
AP Care Homes Ltd opened its sole home less than a year ago in July 2023, funded via a £1.2 million loan from Pickston’s billionaire fiancé, David Sullivan, the co-owner of West Ham United, who made his fortune in the adult industry.
The facility has twice been restricted by regulator Ofsted from caring for children due to “serious” safeguarding failures and has been effectively shut for the past six months.
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Ampika Pickston’s AP Care Homes Ltd has been barred for caring for children since late January and is now subject to a Care Standards Tribunal
Its latest effective closure on 30 January followed the admittance of a girl with extremely high needs, identified only as ‘Child A’ during a Care Standards Tribunal on 4 and 5 June.
She was removed for her own safety within a week after she threatened employees, self-harmed, caused significant damage to the property, and received hospital treatment. AP Care Homes Ltd’s current interim manager, Leigh Brooks, rejected claims that Pickston had overruled staff advice not to take the child.
The facility has been barred from taking in children ever since and will remain so for the foreseeable future, after an external consultant employed by AP Care Homes Ltd gave evidence to the hearing that the company had overseen “an extremely high level of lack of compliance and concerns”.
In a judgement released on 10 June, Judge Melanie Lewis dismissed the firm’s appeal to allow children to again live at the facility, stating: “Having found that there is still a reasonable risk that a child may be at risk of harm if we allowed further admissions to the home, we conclude it is wholly proportionate and necessary for the restriction to remain in force in the light of [its] history.
“In the light of that history, this is [a] home that can expect to come under the most careful scrutiny from Ofsted and placing authorities. A member of the public knowing these facts would expect nothing less.”
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AP Care Homes Ltd is run by reality TV star Ampika Pickston and was bankrolled by her fiance, West Ham co-owner David Sullivan
While AP Care Homes Ltd’s first home, Moss Farm in Styal, Cheshire, was paid for in its entirety through a loan provided by Sullivan, Pickston – who did not give evidence during the two-day hearing – was noted by the tribunal to be AP Care Homes Ltd’s sole director.
Pickston had originally applied to run the home, despite having no experience in the social or child care sector, the tribunal heard.
While acting as the home’s de facto manager last year, she was heard to have “blurred” professional boundaries by taking a girl back to her home, and asking another girl to go back there three weeks later.
The main concerns raised by Judge Lewis in the decision not to allow AP Care Homes Ltd to reopen were that two managers who worked at the home during the “chaotic” period when Child A was admitted remain employed there by Pickston.
Lewis accepted that there had been “some evidence of progress” in the home’s ability to care for children, and that the management team had “clearly spent time updating policies and procedures, particularly around safeguarding”.
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When a care home for vulnerable children funded by billionaire West Ham United Chairman David Sullivan, and run by his OnlyFans model reality TV star partner Ampika Pickston, had its registration suspended over safeguarding issues, it led to a strange chain of events and legal threats to this newspaper
But she said that it was worrying that the home’s ‘responsible individual’ Daren Roberts and Leigh Brooks – both of whom had been sacked from previous jobs – were still to be vetted by Ofsted, despite having worked for AP Care Homes Ltd since the start of the year.
“We note that that restriction could be reviewed once Ms Brooks has supplied the necessary references and attended any ‘fit person’ interview required by Ofsted and once Mr Roberts has attended a ‘fit person’ interview,” Lewis said.
The home is also facing a cancellation notice by Ofsted – charged with assessing children’s care homes as well as schools and colleges – which the judgment noted that AP Care Homes Ltd plans to appeal.
Byline Times reported in March how up to £530 million a year of taxpayers’ money is being used to house vulnerable children in unsafe homes, with 85% of them run by profit-making companies in what has been described as a “dysfunctional” system.
There is no suggestion that 75-year-old Sullivan – who has an estimated £1.2 billion fortune and who owns a 38.8% majority stake in West Ham – ha