Pensioners found ‘handcuffed & locked in cages’ in horror care home after OAP smuggled SOS note to family to alert cops

PENSIONERS were handcuffed, locked in cages and kept in barred rooms at a horror care home, it is claimed.

The alleged abuse was exposed after a woman hatched a plot with another resident to smuggle a note to her daughter pleading for help to escape.

Police have since launched an investigation into the retirement and psychiatric care facility in Thailand over accusations residents were subjected to “worse conditions than animals”.

Footage captured by investigators inside the care home appears to show residents sleeping in beds mounted with cages.

Other rooms were partitioned with metal bars topped with razor wire and rusty prison-style barriers.

The woman was freed after she asked a patient who was leaving the facility to take a note from her with her daughter’s phone number and a desperate SOS plea.

When the daughter received a call from the former patient alleging that her mother was being abused, her family rushed to the facility and demanded her release.

She then alerted police to the alleged horrors taking place inside the care home.

The elderly woman alleges she was threatened, forced to take medication and unlawfully confined over her two years at the facility.

She has accused her son of placing her in the care home to begin with.

Describing her ordeal on Thai television, the woman said: “These were the worst two years of my life. I almost gave up. We were kept in worse conditions than animals. It was inhuman.

“I want the police and authorities to close down the facility.

“It should not be allowed. I am grateful to my daughter for saving me, but it was my son who locked me in here.

“I want the police to deal with him, too.”

The care home operator, Pronsoemsiri Siripatcharasakul, has denied any wrongdoing and argued the facility has the correct permits.

She said the barred rooms were installed for the residents’ own safety, and only the most severe psychiatric patients were housed there.

“They can move their feet and stretch their legs, but they try to get off their bed all the time because they don’t understand,” she said.

“If they don’t understand and they fall and hit their head or something, we will be held liable, right? So we confine them like this so they can still have activities.”

She also denied there was any physical abuse taking place at the home.

Denying the complaint raised by the elderly woman, she said her son had brought her to stay because she suffered from a psychiatric condition.

“She would often complain that her son abandoned her, so we would let them talk on the phone regularly,” she said.

“Eventually, we saw that she was getting better. At that point, we saw that she herself wanted to go home, so we allowed her.

“This is a completely different story from what she said.”

Police Major General Pattanasak Bubphasuwan said: “We are currently gathering information from the executives and staff, as well as collecting relevant evidence, including CCTV footage and witness statements.

“This is to determine the facts and establish whether any wrongdoing occurred as alleged before proceeding with further legal action.”