AN INQUEST into the death of a man after suffering a seizure in supported living accommodation heard that an epilepsy sensor under his mattress didn’t work.

Danny Tozer’s father Tim said yesterday that a member of staff at the house in Bishopthorpe, run by the charity Mencap, told him he didn’t think the sensor had ever worked.

He said that with hindsight, he would have raised concerns about this, and would also have asked where an alarm would go off and how staff would respond, but said he felt he and his wife Rosemary were seen as "interfering busybodies" after raising many other concerns about Danny’s care.

Mr Tozer, of Elvington, said: “We didn’t want to rock the boat...We felt we were treading on egg shells.” He said they had had concerns about the amount of one-to-one care given to Danny, which was said to be due to short staffing.

Some staff had said that other parents were happy and no one else was complaining.

He raised concerns with City of York Council, which was funding Danny’s care, but felt that some staff resented the intrusion, feeling: "You think we can’t do our job properly.” Mr Tozer said he had felt they needed help and support.

Ruth Walsh, an assistant service manager at the council, said Mencap staff did not feel their positive work was appreciated. “The Mencap team did feel at times that the things they were doing weren’t being recognised,” she said.

The inquest heard that Danny, 36, an autistic man with a severe learning disability, had a seizure in his bedroom while the door was shut, followed by a cardiac arrest, in September 2015.

He died the following day at York Hospital, where Mr Tozer and his wife Rosemary decided his organs should be made available for transplant, saving the lives of five people.

Mrs Tozer said she asked a doctor at the hospital if Danny’s death could have been prevented, and the doctor replied: “If he had been found sooner - yes.”

The inquest was later told that Danny went unobserved by staff for at least 25 minutes while having a "private time" in his bedroom.

Mr Tozer said Danny had been an energetic young man who had the potential to lead a fairly full life.

“It was a great pleasure to be with him,” he said. “He lit up our lives in many ways.”

The Press reported last year how an independent review, commissioned by City of York Council, had raised a series of major concerns about Danny’s death, saying he was left for longer in his room than he should have been but his parents said unanswered questions would be best dealt with through an inquest.

The hearing continues today.