THE mother of teenage girl who died while receiving treatment from a private mental healthcare provider hopes her case will help change “a failing system”, a court heard.

The Priory Group faces a potential multimillion pound fine for breaching health and safety law after Amy El-Keria died in its care in November 2012.

The 14-year-old, who had a history of suicide attempts, had been sent to the group’s Ticehurst House psychiatric hospital in East Sussex less than three months earlier.

Following a criminal investigation by the Health and Safety Executive, the London-based company admitted a charge of being an employer failing to discharge its duty to ensure people were not exposed to health and safety risks.

Legal submissions were presented at a Newton hearing at Lewes Crown Court on Tuesday, ahead of Judge Mr Justice James Dingemans’s sentencing on Wednesday.

The judge allowed Amy’s mother Tania El-Keria to read her personal witness statement to the court.

“There are no words that can truly express the loss of Amy and the impact on me and my family,” she said.

Ms El-Keria said she watched her daughter “struggle” throughout her life, and found it “hard to even comprehend what she was going through”.

Prosecutor Sarah Le Fevre told the court that Amy was admitted to the hospital’s High Dependency Unit on August 23 2012.

On November 12, at 8.15pm, she was found in her bedroom with a ligature tied around her neck and taken to Conquest Hospital in Hastings by 11pm.

She died the following day after life support was withdrawn.

Ms Le Fevre said hospital staff were not adequately trained in identifying, assessing and responding to ligature risks.

She said a ligature audit of Amy’s room, carried out a few days before her death by an untrained member of staff, identified some medium risks which were not followed up.

The court heard that a Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection of the hospital in November 2011 identified ligature risk concerns, which staff had failed to remedy by the time of another inspection in June 2012.

Ms Le Fevre said details of a conversation about suicide Amy had with a nurse shortly after midnight on November 12 were not passed on to her doctor.

The two members of staff who first found Amy had not received basic life support training, but Ms Le Fevre did not claim this caused the teenager’s death.

An application for costs of £65, 807 was made by Ms Le Fevre.

Mr John Cooper, for the Priory Group, whose chief executive Trevor Torrington sat in court, said the company offered “their sincere apologies to Amy’s family for the failings that this case has underlined”.

Mr Cooper claimed reports from medical experts Professor Tom Fahy and Dr Mark Berelowitz concluded the manner of Amy’s death was “not foreseeable” and that the overall quality of her care was “good”.