A care company based in New Addington has become the first to be successfully prosecuted and fined for running unregistered children’s homes.
Home from home: Ofsted brought the prosecution against a children’s home operator
Catalyst Care Ltd and its directors, Davidson Lynch-Shyllon and Miriam Ekathor, pleaded guilty to 10 charges at Croydon Magistrates’ Court in March. Yesterday they were fined £92,400 for operating three unregistered homes in Kent between October 2022 and April 2025, where they provided accommodation for nine children. They were also ordered to pay victim surcharges totalling £2,960 and costs of £17,250.
Lynch-Shyllon and Ekathor were disqualified from carrying on or managing or having a financial interest in a children’s home.
During the time they were operating the illegal care homes, the company received more than £1.8million in payments from local authorities.
The prosecution was brought by Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills, who say that they will in future consider downgrading local councils who use the services of unlicensed care homes such as Catalyst Care’s.
The company was founded in 2020. Its registered address is in a business centre on Vulcan Way. On its website – which is no longer online – the company said: “Catalyst Care provide safe and reliable accommodation and support for young people to live, learn and make the transition to independent adulthood.”
Elsewhere, it said it is “a private accommodation and support provider”, led by “a dedicated team with over 30 years of combined experience in social care, including safeguarding and leaving care”.
During the hearing, the court was told that the firm’s turnover had risen from £190,000 in 2021 to £955,000 in 2024.
Court out: Davidson Lynch-Shyllon leaving Croydon Magistrates after the sentencing
Lynch-Shyllon, 44, and Ekhator, 47, received dividends of £193,000 each over the course of the charge period, the court was told.
Lynch-Shyllon also works as a musician, using the stage name Silvastone. He says he has worked with Rita Ora and Damian Marley.
“In addition to my music career, I have been deeply involved in supporting and nurturing young people,” Lynch-Shyllon says on his online profile.
He told The Times that he and Ekhator did attempt to register their care facilities with Ofsted, and that they had been given assurances by one of the councils they worked for, Medway, that they were operating properly.
Guilty on all counts: Miriam Ekathor
Ofsted “haven’t come back to us for 23 months”, Lynch-Shyllon said. “We had letters from judges, from courts, that asked us to look after young people and because the amount of work we were bamboozled by it all.
“Medway council gave us written confirmation that you can you look after these people for 28 days,” he said. “We did that under the understanding that it was OK.
“We didn’t decide to do this as some kind of get-rich-quick scheme. We have untold numbers of young people that came through our homes who are still contacting us today for help. But [the local authorities] used us and now they’ve literally thrown us under the bus.
“It’s not like we’re an illegal home putting kids in caravans or something like that.”
Ofsted confirmed to The Times that Catalyst Care did attempt to register a children’s home in 2023 and another residential care home in 2025, but the applications were incomplete.
Medway Council said that it repeatedly advised the company to register with Ofsted.
Today, Ofsted said: “The prosecution marks a significant milestone that highlights the serious risks illegal providers pose to vulnerable children.
“The directors of Catalyst Care Ltd were repeatedly warned by Ofsted that they were breaking the law, yet continued operating contrary to the legal requirements for registration.”
All children’s homes in England must register with Ofsted. Operating a home without registration is a criminal offence.
Ofsted estimates there are around 900 illegal children’s homes operating in England.
In 2024, a report by the Children’s Commissioner for England found that, at any one time, hundreds of vulnerable children were placed in unregistered homes for an average of six months each.
Councils say that they are often forced to turn to unregistered children’s homes because there are not enough registered homes in the right locations or homes that are willing to take children with very complex needs.
“Unregistered children’s homes operate outside of independent and regulatory oversight, meaning the children placed there have no assurance of safe or suitable care,” Ofsted said.
“There are no guaranteed checks on staff or living conditions, or accountability when things go wrong. Worryingly, many children placed in illegal homes are often those with the most complex needs.”
Ofsted says it has issued “hundreds of warnings” over the use of unregistered provision. Unregistered homes has grown, the watchdog says, “because not enough registered homes are in the right location or have staff with skills to effectively care for children with complex needs”.
Ofsted said: “Illegal unregistered providers frequently charge local authorities exorbitant fees, further exploiting a system already under strain.”
Ofsted has recently been granted new powers through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act to tackle illegal children’s homes. They include the introduction of financial penalties which will allow Ofsted to issue fines to illegal children’s homes.
‘Scandal’: children’s commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza
Ofsted is also consulting on changes to its inspections of local authorities’ children’s services, including how it evaluates councils’ use of unregistered children’s homes.
“It is heartbreaking that so many vulnerable children are placed in unregistered children’s homes where we have no assurance that they are safe or receiving the care they need and deserve,” Sir Martyn Oliver, Ofsted’s chief inspector, said.
“This outcome marks an important milestone in our efforts to tackle illegal children’s homes and sends a clear message that operating outside the law will have consequences. We are determined to make increased use of prosecutions to tackle the offenders running these settings.
“We are currently consulting on proposals to downgrade local authorities who commission these illegal homes.”
Reacting to the prosecution, Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for England, said: “It is incomprehensible that this is happening in 2026 and prosecutions can’t come too soon.
“I hope it represents the beginning of the end for the scandal of illegal providers who put profit above the safety of vulnerable children.”
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Consider downgrading? Seems like the bare minimum…
I bet both “directors” don’t have a penny… the company will be dissolved and a new one created. The same corrupted local authority will then award them another contract. It should be a jail sentence for them and for whoever awarded the contract, putting children at risk.