WE’RE TOO SOFT ON CORRUPT ‘CARERS’
The message I received from reader Lynette Hobbs was typical of the responses to my column last week about care workers who defraud the very people they’re supposed to be protecting.
“I was so upset with these people doing awful things to vulnerable pensioners,” she wrote.
“What makes me so mad is they get little or no jail time, yet on another page of the Mirror it was reported that you can get 10 years if you are caught using Kodi boxes for the television.
“I think the world has gone mad.”
I’m afraid that the latest cases will do nothing to change Lynette’s view.
So-caller carer Carla Hamilton stole around £20,000 from a grandmother suffering from multiple sclerosis.
The 29-year-old, from Monkseaton, North Tyneside, admitted theft and fraud offences.
Judge Stephen Earl, sitting at Newcastle crown court, said it was “a gross breach of trust” and sentenced her to two years jail – suspended for two years.
Hamilton has since repaid £19,795, but the prosecution told the court that the amount taken was probably more.
In mitigation, the court was told that she was in an abusive relationship – don’t ask me how that is supposed to explain theft from a vulnerable grandmother.
In a separate case, a 21-year-old has escaped jail after admitting stealing cash from the 87-year-old man in his care.
Daniel Wratten, from North Shields, took £350 in small amounts over four months from the Alzheimer’s sufferer, North Tyneside magistrates were told.
He was jailed for 26 weeks, suspended for 12 months and given 20 days’ unpaid work.
PC Ben Blackburn, of Northumbria Police, called the offences “a callous betrayal of trust”.
In Northern Ireland, thieving care worker Fiona Birch has had her jail term cut to a fourmonth suspended sentence on appeal.
The 53-year-old, from Crumlin, had admitted fraud by false representation after using the bank card of a 91-year-old client and stealing £1,347.
The appeal heard that she suffers from psychiatric issues – though ones not spotted by the care firm that gave her a job.
Robbing a woman in her eighties of her savings HAS resulted in jail for two crooks in Cambridgeshire. Neil and Kim Riley were neighbours of their victim and took over her affairs – transferring £150,000 of her savings into their bank account.
Neil Riley, 52, was jailed for 28 months and Kim Riley, 53, got 18 months for fraud.
Investigating officer DC Louise Mann said after the case at Cambridge crown court: “The victim believed the Rileys were her friends and put them in this position of trust feeling they would look after her needs and best interests.”