\n<\/p>\n
O’Donnell told the inquiry that, at the end of 2024, he was asked to review thousands of incident reports raised by staff, some dating back to 2021.<\/p>\n
He said he was instructed by a senior member of staff, who said: “We need to get these gone.”<\/p>\n
They included incidents involving self-harm, assaults on staff and racial abuse, he explained.<\/p>\n
“The first thing that popped into my head was there’s an inquiry going on and they’re panicking about these because no-one’s looked at them – that was my first thought and that’s what I still think.”<\/p>\n
Talking about the way the trust acted at the time, he said: “There wasn’t, ‘Can there be a thorough investigation of these and can you feed back?’ It was, ‘We need these gone, we need these processed and we need them gone’.”<\/p>\n
O’Donnell said he initially closed some of the reports but stopped after becoming uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
“I thought, I can’t put my name to this and say I’ve thoroughly investigated it because I haven’t,” he told the inquiry.<\/p>\n
Asked what happened to the remaining reports, he said: “They sat on my dashboard for a very long time then disappeared one day. I don’t know whether they’ve been dealt with. I doubt it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n