Council apologise after man was locked inside closed-down toilets for more than 24 hours

Council bosses have apologised after a man was locked in a closed-down public toilet for more than 24 hours and was only discovered after a passerby heard his cries for help. The man, thought to be homeless, had entered the toilets on the High Street in Weston, Bath, on Sunday to use it as somewhere dry and warm to sleep for the night. However, unbeknown to the man the very next morning a task force from private firm Healthmatic came and locked the toilets but without checking they were empty. The man was not discovered until 10.30am on Tuesday morning after a passerby heard him knocking and calling for help.

Mother-of-three Lucy Giffen, 39, was taking her children to the Weston Toy Library held at the nearby Children’s Centre when she heard the man. “We walked passed and I thought I could hear someone shouting and banging the door so I went back - I did think I was hearing things. I called the police and they had to get someone to come and release him. He was so obviously a homeless man, but that isn’t the point. He was in there all day, in the hot weather. Other people must have walked past and not heard him. He did press the alarm and the red light was flashing but it’s obviously not connected to anything because no one came. I am disgusted that they didn’t check before they put the lock on.”



The public toilets in Weston are one of five facilities across Bath and north east Somerset now closed by the local authority in an attempt to save money. Healthmatic, the private firm brought in by B&NES Council to manage its network of public toilets, locked the toilets in Weston at 7am on Monday morning, along with toilets in Larkhall, Twerton, Combe Down and Peasedown St John. Bath North East Somerset Council said: “We apologise unreservedly to the man in question, who is fortunately unharmed by this incident. We have now taken action with our contractors to ensure that they follow procedure so that this cannot happen again.” Healthmatic has admitted that staff only knocked on the door of the toilet and did not go inside.

The company said in a statement: “Healthmatic’s cleaning and maintenance staff did the final locking up of the toilets on Monday. They knocked on the door as a check and no response was received. It was not opened and visually checked – this should have been done as correct procedure. All the disabled toilets have an emergency alarm – it seems that when the man awoke on Tuesday morning, he sounded the alarm via a pull cord in the toilet and he also banged on the door; this was heard by a passing member of the public who alerted the police, who in turn called Healthmatic. A Healthmatic supervisor was on site within five to 10 minutes of the call; they offered to take the man to the RUH or a doctors’ surgery for a check-up, which he declined. He was offered food which he accepted and walked away unharmed. The man said that he was happy with the outcome to the Healthmatic staff and police.” The council added that all of the closed toilets were revisited on Tuesday to make sure they were empty.