Bupa carer ‘sprayed deodorant in mouth of dementia patient’
‘She can’t move out of the way’
A LAUGHING Bupa carer was recorded spraying a dementia patient in the mouth with deodorant after the woman’s family installed a spy camera in her room, a court heard yesterday.
Susan Draper, 43, was accused of mistreating 78-year-old Betty Boylan after relatives hid the camera in a television when they noticed bruising on her body.
Yesterday she was found guilty of ill treatment in a position of care.
Mrs Boylan, was immobile and incontinent but described as ‘happy and compliant’ when she was admitted to the Perry Locks home in Birmingham, the court was told.
But prosecutor Shawn Williams told magistrates she was filmed being wrongly hoisted out of bed into a chair, had her hair roughly combed and her face forcefully wiped with a flannel before and after being sprayed with the aerosol. Mr Williams said it would also be for the court to decide whether Draper’s habit of addressing the pensioner as ‘Betty Boo Boo’ could be considered derogatory.
Mrs Boylan was taken into Birmingham Magistrates Court in a wheelchair by relatives to watch Draper face trial.
Referring to the seven-minute video footage – which was played in court – Mr Williams told how a second carer had entered the pensioner’s room with a hoist and manoeuvred Mrs Boylan into a chair.
Mr Williams said the harness was inappropriately attached. ‘ The lady’s bottom can be seen sticking out,’ he added. Later in the video the defendant picked up an aerosol can, Impulse Body Spray, which the family had left but Mr Williams suggested may have been used to mask the fact that Mrs Boylan had not been checked or changed.
Mr Williams said: ‘ She is being sprayed in the face, and there is a response from her which sounds as if she is saying, “stop it”.’
The prosecutor added that as Draper wiped her face, Mrs Boylan ‘gurgles and coughs but she is not able to move out of the way’.
The second carer then points out that the spray has gone in Mrs Boyan’s mouth. Draper responded by laughing and making a crude joke.
Draper, who had worked at the home for 17 years, told police she did not spray Mrs Boylan’s face deliberately. But Mr Williams said that if she had lowered her professional approach, it could still be considered neglect.
Draper, who has been sacked, told the court she had made a ‘stupid mistake’, adding: ‘I just wanted her to smell and look nice – I am not a bad person, I wouldn’t hurt any resident.’
But she was convicted after 30 minutes of deliberations.
Chairman of the bench Frank Fletcher said: ‘ The care was inadequate and amounts to ill treatment.’
Sentencing was adjourned until next month.
Mrs Boylan moved into the Bupa home in September 2015 for respite care but became a full-time resident after her husband died in March last year.
Another carer at the home was prosecuted for grabbing Mrs Boylan by the back of the neck – abuse also captured by the £200 spy cam.
Mrs Boylan has moved out of the home to live with daughter Bernadette Jarvis, 51, and husband Nigel, 56.