She’s a reality TV star who sold X-rated pictures of herself online and is engaged to a billionaire porn baron.
So who on earth thought that Ampika Pickston – who has no experience in the sector – would be a suitable person to open a care home for vulnerable children?
Until it was shuttered a year ago – only to be briefly reopened and then closed a second time – Moss Farm Children’s Home in the village of Styal, Cheshire, was owned and operated by AP Care Homes Ltd, a company for which 43-year-old Ms Pickston is sole director.
Opened in July last year, Moss Farm was meant to house up to four vulnerable girls aged between 12 and 16 – costing the taxpayer up to £14,000 per child every week. In other words, Ms Pickston was sitting on a potential gold mine with revenues of nearly £3 million per year.
But the lucrative dream quickly soured. For Moss Farm Children’s Home was closed months later by order of the regulator Ofsted following a string of damning reports that cited multiple ‘safeguarding failures’ including bullying, staff sleeping on the job and young residents going missing.
It then opened and was closed again, and is now appealing that decision. Whistleblower testimony seen by the Daily Mail even alleges that Ms Pickston threatened violence against any employee who spoke out, though she denies this.
Now, in a shocking turn of events, the Mail can reveal that AP Care Homes Ltd is suing the three Ofsted inspectors responsible for the home’s closure, accusing them of acting ‘maliciously’ and reporting ‘numerous material falsehoods’.
This is the story of a woefully run care home – backed by a sleazy tycoon – that failed to keep young people safe and is now allegedly trying to silence anyone who speaks out against it.
So how did Ampika Pickston find the millions to purchase and operate a children’s care home?
After stepping down in the first place from reality TV show The Real Housewives Of Cheshire in 2017, she sold sexually explicit photos on online platform OnlyFans for £16 a month, then closed the account.
Now the Mail can reveal that her company, AP Care Homes Ltd, received a £1.2 million loan courtesy of Rickleford Ltd. This firm is exclusively controlled by her fiance David Sullivan, a ‘businessman’ 32 years her senior.
Sullivan made his fortune producing ‘adult entertainment’ – a string of magazines and films in the 1970s – before buying up swathes of prime London real estate. The 2024 Sunday Times Rich List estimated his net worth at £1.17 billion – making him the 150th richest man in the country.
The aggressive 75-year-old is perhaps best known as the co-owner of Premier League football club West Ham United and is a long-term friend of the club’s vice-chair, Tory peer Baroness (Karren) Brady.
Sullivan, however, has not been without his controversies.
He earned the nickname ‘The Sultan of Sleaze’ after he admitted to sleeping with many of the glamour models who appeared in his publications. In a 1996 interview he quipped: ‘What’s the point in owning a sweet shop if you can’t eat a few sweets?’ Although his fiancee runs the company operating Moss Farm Children’s Home, there is no suggestion Sullivan had any direct involvement in its operation.
However, one might reasonably question whether a man like him was suitable to provide the funds for such a sensitive project.
Regardless, after registering with Ofsted, Moss Farm Children’s Home opened in July last year.
Situated next to a petting farm and an equestrian centre, the ‘luxury’ property seemed the perfect place to care for vulnerable young people. Pickston herself pledged: ‘My goal is that every child in our care [has] the right to be healthy, happy, safe and secure, and to feel loved, valued and respected.’
Yet barely four months after opening, the home was temporarily closed and its three residents rehoused following that damning Ofsted report.
Among the numerous failures listed within the 15-page document was that ‘one child was routinely missing meals’ – at one point not eating for ‘at least two days’, according to inspectors.
Incidents were cited in which children had allegedly ‘gone missing’ from the property. One child even claimed she had been ‘sexually assaulted’ while away from the home unsupervised.
In another major safeguarding breach, a child reported accessing ‘potentially unsafe websites, including communicating with strangers via video messaging’.
The report also detailed widespread child-on-child bullying in the home, as well as the use of ‘restraint techniques’ by staff who had no record of receiving appropriate training.
Staff failings didn’t stop there. Inspectors found that one employee was twice filmed by children sleeping on the job when they should have been caring for the young residents.
Pickston herself, who also finds time to be the CEO of ‘cosmetic training academy’ Ampika’s Aesthetics, which teaches students how to inject lip filler and other ‘tweakments’, came in for significant personal criticism.
It emerged in the report that she had allegedly taken a child back to her £3 million home in what many experts would consider a shocking breach of professional boundaries. The report concluded that Pickston lacked ‘the skills and experience’ to operate a home in line with official regulations.
But, far from the end of an ill-judged project, this was only the beginning.
At the end of last year journalists Tom Latchem and Dan Evans began looking into the care home’s closure and, after attempting to contact employees via LinkedIn, received a ‘heavy’ legal threat from AP Care Homes.
Tom told the Mail: ‘It warned me that the Ofsted report was ‘flawed’, reporting on it would be ‘defamatory’ and, if I published anything defamatory, they would advise the company to sue me personally for damages and costs, just for doing my job.’
The story then took a strange twist on January 3 this year, when Ofsted ruled that AP Care Homes had taken the necessary steps to have its licence reinstated with immediate effect. But rather than accepting this apparent victory, Ampika Pickston shared a belligerent video on Instagram on January 21.
With flowing curly locks and wearing skin-tight leggings and a bright orange neckerchief, Pickston told her 200,000 followers that she was considering taking legal action against Ofsted.
She described the regulator’s initial report as ‘an abuse of power’ and demanded a ‘public inquiry’ into whether Ofsted was ‘fit for purpose’.
She also compared Ofsted’s conduct to the notorious Post Office Horizon scandal, which saw more than 900 sub-postmasters wrongly prosecuted due to a faulty computer program.
Likening her experience to that of school headteacher Ruth Perry, who tragically took her life in January 2023 following a critical Ofsted inspection, Pickston declared: ‘I am standing up for people that have lost their homes, their lifestyles, their businesses… at the hands of Ofsted.’
Despite this outburst, the farce surrounding her care home only continued. Before the month was out, Moss Farm Children’s Home was closed yet again after taking in a child with significant ‘additional needs’. Needs, it turned out, which Ofsted claims the home was in no way equipped to meet.
Ofsted alleged that the teenager, identified only as Child A, threatened employees, required police support after causing significant damage to the property, self-harmed and received hospital treatment.
AP Care Homes eventually admitted it was unable to care for the young person. Following a further ‘monitoring visit’ on January 30, Ofsted imposed an immediate ‘restriction of care’ – effectively closing the home for the second time.
In June, AP Care Homes tried and failed to lift this restriction order at a tribunal. But the evidence against it only increased.
Lawyers for Ofsted alleged Pickston had overruled one of her managers to demand that the home take in Child A because the local authority – which the Mail is prevented from naming owing to legal restrictions – was offering an unusually large weekly fee of £14,000. Pickston denies the claim that she overruled the manager.
Tribunal judge Melanie Lewis found AP Care Homes had demonstrated a ‘very serious history of failure in a very short time’ and would therefore not be permitted to reopen.
That should have been that. And yet, in spite of everything, the shocking tale continues. Not only is AP Care Homes in the process of appealing the closure of Moss Farm, the discredited firm is now attempting to sue three of the Ofsted inspectors involved in the closure.
The case, due to be heard in January, has been brought by London law firm Rainer Hughes. This firm has long represented David Sullivan and companies he is associated with, including West Ham United.
Ahead of the High Court case, an employment tribunal is due to be brought by at least one former AP Care Homes employee claiming unfair dismissal.
Their extensive testimony, seen by this newspaper, is shocking. In it, the ex-staff member, whom we have chosen not to name, makes multiple serious allegations against AP Care Homes and Ms Pickston personally.
These include claims that the reality TV star threatened violence against any employee who spoke to journalists about the home. They also allege that Ms Pickston boasted to staff that she was ‘lucky’ to have a partner wealthy enough to fund her legal action against Ofsted – currently estimated to have incurred costs of more than £100,000.
In a fierce denial, Ms Pickston told the Mail: ‘I have never threatened any member of staff who has worked for me.’
She also denied discussing legal funds with her staff and claimed that fees relating to the action against Ofsted had been ‘paid from my personal account’.
Former Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield, now executive chair of the Centre for Young Lives, told the Mail: ‘This case raises a number of questions and concerns, which I would urge Ofsted to examine very closely. ‘The children’s social care system is in need of urgent reform.
Children’s homes should be there to provide love, care and opportunities for vulnerable children to thrive, not as a cash cow.’
It is understood that around £530 million of taxpayers’ money per year is being used to house vulnerable children in unsafe homes, with 85 per cent of them run by profit-making companies such as AP Care Homes.
Last month, the Government announced plans to crack down on profiteering in the care sector, along with a raft of measures to improve the safeguarding of children. The plans will also confer greater powers on Ofsted – which could have significant implications for AP Care Homes.
It must be said, however, that not everyone has faith in the regulator. Christian Kerr, a senior lecturer and author in children’s care, told the Mail: ‘Councils are desperate to find homes for children in care, so they may not ask too many questions.
‘Everyone assumes that Ofsted has done due diligence and is satisfied that all is well.
‘Ofsted needs to be much clearer about what is taken into account when children’s homes are registered, and whether there is a ‘fit and proper’ test for ownership and what that involves.’
Ofsted said: ‘We continue to work closely with AP Care Homes, regularly monitoring whether they have taken the necessary steps to operate a care home within the children’s home regulations.
‘Our inspectors act in the best interests of children, ensuring their safety and welfare.
‘They inspect with professionalism, empathy, courtesy and respect. In return, we expect providers to afford our inspectors the same level of courtesy.’
On her Instagram page, Ampika Pickston calls herself ‘queen of wanting to make a difference’.
With the travails of AP Care Homes, the reality TV star has certainly made a difference – but certainly not the sort she had in mind.
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