Carer pleads guilty to theft from dementia sufferer

A BANORA Point aged carer working with RSL Life Care ripped off an elderly woman suffering from the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

However, Debbie Ann Brown’s plan fell flat when the family of the victim checked footage from a CCTV camera they had installed in the woman’s home due to safety concerns.

Brown was subsequently charged with larceny by Tweed-Byron police and given the sack by her employer.

The 56-year-old woman pleaded guilty in the Tweed Heads Local Court yesterday to the theft of $700 on December 7 last year.

She had been working for RSL Life Care for about one year and caring for the elderly Banora Point woman – recently “diagnosed with onset Alzheimer’s and dementia” – for about three months, court documents alleged.

On December 7 last year, Brown cashed a cheque for $700 at Tweed City Shopping Centre at Tweed Heads South on behalf of the woman.

When she returned, Brown tucked the money away inside a wardrobe for the victim.

Four days later, a relative of the elderly woman found the cash destined to be distributed in family Christmas cards had vanished. The woman’s family would soon discover CCTV footage showed Brown taking “money from the wallet and placing it in her bra”.

Taking into account Brown’s early guilty plea, Magistrate Geoff Dunlevy placed her on an 18-month community correction order and ordered $700 be repaid.

The magistrate did record a conviction.