Care home worker jailed for abuse of 89-year-old caught on hidden camera

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/aug/29/care-home-worker-hidden-camera

Version 0 of 1.

A care home assistant has been sent to prison for "unforgivable and unacceptable" neglect and ill-treatment of an 89-year-old woman.

Emma Bryan's "sickening" mistreatment of Ivy Robinson was uncovered only after the pensioner's worried family recorded the abuse on a camera concealed within an alarm clock at Oakfoss House residential care home in Pontefract, West Yorkshire.

Bryan, 29, hit and shook Robinson, verbally abused her on a number of occasions and failed to administer proper doses of medicine. Along with her colleague Katherine Wallis, 45, she dragged Robinson across her bedroom floor, making the elderly woman scream in pain. Wallis then threatened her with violence.

Abuse spanning five days was captured on the hidden CCTV camera after Robinson's family became concerned about bruises on her body and saw that she was more distressed than usual. She suffers from dementia and had lived at the home for six years.

Richard Butters, for the prosecution, told the court that the footage, from between 11 and 16 November 2011, showed Robinson was subjected to an array of "utterly undignified" treatment.

Bryan was sentenced to four months at Leeds crown court on Wednesday and Wallis was given a 12-month community order.

Butters explained that Robinson's daughter, Angela Wood, gave up work to help Oakfoss staff to care for her mother. But Wood became increasingly concerned about how she was being treated.

He said: "Angela Wood and her husband, Simon Wood, started to see bruises developing on Ivy Robinson's hands. She was also becoming rather distressed, more so than usual, when her daughter was about to leave. Having their suspicions, Simon Wood, the son-in-law, put a covert camera into his mother-in-law's room. The footage that's on that camera is distressing."

The video showed Bryan swearing at Robinson, and calling her a "horrible old lady" and a "nasty old cow", Butters said. The footage also revealed that Bryan had not given the pensioner her medicine properly and showed her striking her on the hand and shaking her before telling her to "piss off".

On one occasion, both Bryan and Wallis dragged Robinson between her chair and bed, "completely ignoring the wishes of Ivy, chatting among themselves", he said. "It's at that point one can hear Ivy shrieking."

A care assistant trainer who viewed the footage described it as the worst case of ill-treatment and neglect she had ever seen and said she was "physically upset" by the recording, the court heard.

Bryan pleaded guilty to four counts of wrongly administering medicine. Both women also pleaded guilty to ill-treatment by moving a patient in an unapproved manner.

Judge Guy Kearl QC banned both women from working with vulnerable adults. He said the case represented a serious breach of trust and left Robinson and her family deeply upset.

The judge said: "This lady doesn't seem to have caused you any problems at all, which makes this treatment seem somewhat gratuitous. You've known perfectly well that what you were doing was simply wrong. This neglect and ill-treatment is unforgivable and unacceptable. You failed to accord respect and dignity to this respectful elderly lady."

The judge gave Bryan and Wallis, who are both from the Pontefract area, credit for pleading guilty at Pontefract magistrates court in July.

Following the hearing, Robinson's daughter and son-in-law said they were finding it difficult to come to terms with the abuse.

In a statement read by their solicitor, Anne Robertson, a medical negligence specialist, they said: "Mum was a resident at Oakfoss House to be cared for and looked after. However, due to the failings of Oakfoss House, over a five night period, mum was physically, verbally and medically neglected and abused by staff who should have provided this care.

"It is difficult to describe the effect this abuse has had on mum, our family and our lives but to see what mum was subjected to sickened and horrified us. This will never leave our memories. Moreover we feel as though we have let mum down.

"The decision to install the CCTV came as a last resort and was a culmination of various incidents over a period of months that could not be explained by staff at Oakfoss. The final trigger was when mum became agitated and frightened when it came time for us to leave on an evening. She would cry and ask us not to leave.

"No one knows how long this abuse and neglect had been going on for. We hope that other families can learn from mum's ordeal and be aware of certain signs. Just because someone has dementia does not mean that they do not know what is going on – please listen to them and act."

The Woods decided to move Robinson out of Oakfoss House and are now taking further legal advice.