HALTON Social Services has denied claims made in court that a failure to escort patients to and from a Runcorn day centre contributed to the death of a 57-year-old patient.

David Humphries, of Lapwing Grove, Runcorn, died in March as a result of a fall outside the Astmoor Day Centre.

Mr Humphries, who suffered from learning difficulties and poor eyesight, fell while he was walking from the centre to a public bus stop.

His sister, Sandra Darnell of Widnes, told an inquest at Warrington Crown Court that she felt it would have been better had Astmoor provided someone to accompany clients to the bus stop.

But Halton's social services chief Ged Taylor denied that patients were left to walk unattended to bus stops.

He said: "This is not the case as the council goes to considerable lengths to supply the correct level of transport for these services which generally comes direct to the centre by arrangement for some service users."

All transport for centre users, he said, came into the car park and pulled up as near to the front door as possible.

Mr Taylor said that an assumption made by carers and service users that adults went alone to public bus stops was wrong.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.