Banned items were found on an NHS mental health ward after a patient died and some incidents were not fully reported, a jury was told.

Alice Figueiredo, 22, died by suicide on July 7 2015 while she was an in-patient at Goodmayes Hospital.

Benjamin Aninakwa, who managed the Hepworth ward at the time, denies charges of gross negligence manslaughter.

North East London Foundation NHS Trust (NELFT), which oversees healthcare in Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Redbridge and Waltham Forest, denies corporate manslaughter.

Speaking from the witness box in the Old Bailey on Wednesday (November 20), healthcare support worker Violet Storey said she found a bin-liner on the ward “a few days” after Alice died.

Alice had used them to self-harm on 18 separate occasions, the court was previously told.

It was Aninakwa’s decision to remove the items from the ward, Violet said, but “nothing happened”.

She added she had shown it to members of staff and to Aninakwa, of St Francis Way, Grays, Essex, who agreed they were not allowed on the ward.

At the time of Alice’s death, there had been a plastic bag in the toilets of the communal bin. Though Violet said the toilets were sometimes open, Aisha Khan KC, defending Aninakwa, said they were locked unless a patient requested to use them.

Patients also had access to en-suite bathrooms.

Alice had attempted to harm herself a total of 39 times between February and July, but the jury was told that not every incident was logged on a dedicated database.

The NHS uses a system called Datix to report specific incidents involving patients. It also uses software called Rio for daily logs on how patients have been feeling and acting.

The jury was shown some of Alice’s Rio records from March and April that described self-harm attempts.

Violet said she would have “expected” there to be corresponding Datix reports, but none had been inputted. She said some “should have been”.

Alice had been close with Violet and would request she be the one to supervise her, the court heard.

The healthcare support worker said the pair had a “good rapport,” and she had been the one to find Alice unresponsive on the day she died.

The court was told during her five-month stay, Alice was placed on high-level observations. One of them involved a nurse never being out of arm’s reach, while the tier below required Alice to constantly be in eyesight.

The jury heard that she had been “frustrated” by being kept under observation and was “looking forward” to being treated at Newmarket House, a clinic for eating disorders in Norwich.

Shortly before her death, Alice had been given permission to go home for the night and had attended a Fleetwood Mac concert with her boyfriend.

She had also been placed on general observation, which Violet said made the 22-year-old feel “great”.

Being on general observation and taking leave were “the lead up” to being discharged, she added.

The trial continues.

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