SOUTHERN Health has been fined £2m after admitting failures that led to the deaths of two patients.

The NHS Foundation Trust admitted breaching health and safety regulations following the deaths of Connor Sparrowhawk and Teresa Colvin from the New Forest.

Connor, 18, was found dead after drowning in a bathtub at Slade House, Oxford.

Mrs Colvin, 45, of Lyndhurst, was found slumped beside a communal telephone at the Woodhaven mental health complex in Calmore and later died.

Justice Jeremy Stuart-Smith imposed a fine of £1.05m for Connor’s death and £950,000 for Mrs Colvin’s.

He said: “Lying behind each lies the story of unnecessary human tragedy.

“It’s a regrettable fact that it took a time-consuming and punishing campaign on behalf of Connor’s parents and Teresa’s husband to uncover the serious and systemic problems with the trust’s health and safety arrangements, which are fully accepted by the trust.”

He added Connor’s mother, Dr Sarah Ryan, had endured “utterly unjustifiable criticism as she pursued her Justice for LB campaign” following her son’s death.

Connor, 18, was found dead at Slade House, Headington, in 2013.

He had suffered an epileptic fit and an earlier inquest ruled that ‘neglect’ had played a part in his death.

Mrs Colvin died in April 2012.

During a two-day hearing last week, Paul Spencer, defending for the trust, urged the court for leniency in light of its struggling finances.

He said: “A distance should be drawn between a trust that hasn’t learned a lesson, appears to be reluctant to recognise and accept its responsibility and its guilt and the position of this trust.

“It has been candid and it has been candid for a significant time.”

He added that “lessons had been learned” across the trust since 2016 and said that now more than 98 per cent of its staff had epilepsy training in the wake of the Oxford teenager’s death.

He also warned that the trust was already facing a budget deficit of around £1.69 million and that any fine would hit the service hard.

The trust has two months to pay the fine.