Would-be carers’ toll of crimes
ED GLEAVE innocence and that should have been done by police.
“I did their job for them. If the police had done their job it wouldn’t have gone on for so long. Even throughout my interview it was me asking the officer the questions.
“I offered him all the details he needed but he didn’t care. If he had done his job properly then it would have never even gone to court.”
Susanne said the stress of being falsely accused left her struggling to cope.
Her plight was made worse when she hit the headlines in January for falsely claiming she had scooped a recordbreaking Lotto jackpot.
She said her ticket was the £33million winner, but claimed it had been damaged in her washing machine.
Susanne, from Warndon, Worcester, said: “I started suffering depression and it became terrible. At one point I couldn’t stop crying and I didn’t want to be here any more. I wanted to end my life, I was suicidal. It got really bad.
“I still feel pretty down now. I have to keep myself occupied. If I stop doing stuff then I get depressed. I’m scared to think about what I would have ended up doing if I hadn’t kept myself busy over the past 18 months.”
Susanne’s solicitor Judith Kenney criticised the police at her trial and said a complaint has been made against the investigating officer.
Fragile Susanne also blames the stress of the case for her crippling health conditions.
They include chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and severe heart problems.
She is now dependant on a cocktail of 16 tablets a day, as well as an inhaler.
Susanne said: “The case has had a serious impact on my health. It made me so anxious. My breathing became more difficult and I didn’t eat for days at a time.
“I became so poorly last September I collapsed and was taken to hospital. I was put in a respiratory ward but I started hallucinating. I ended up in critical care and was diagnosed with severe heart failure on both sides. “They gathered my family together and said I wasn’t going to last the night. I remember my son was screaming.” She added: “The consultants say it’s a miracle I’m still here. Even on the day of the verdict I was getting ready and I was so out of breath. “At one point I was holding my chest and trying to scream for my son because I couldn’t find my inhaler.” Susanne admitted: “It actually feels like I don’t even have a life any more. I’m not allowed to work as a nurse because of my health problems. “I’m just really lonely. I feel like I’m not living, I’m just existing.” She added: “If it had gone the wrong way at court my solicitor was going to put in an application for an appeal in the crown court. That’s how confident she felt that the evidence was too thin.” MATTHEW DAVIS PEOPLE who applied for jobs as carers last year were shown to have almost 18,000 convictions for theft-related offences.
The revelation follows a string of high-profile cases where vulnerable elderly people have had savings stolen from them by the people who were meant to look after them.
Among crimes uncovered by the work checks are stealing from employers, breaking into homes, benefit fraud, shoplifting and stealing property and cars.
Last year, 12,519 would-be carers were found to have criminal pasts when checks were done on their backgrounds by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).
They had clocked up a total of 58,757 offences, almost 18,000 of which related to theft and dishonesty. The DBS said the would-be carers it flagged up had amassed 4,890 offences of shoplifting and 3,218 of burglary.
Recent criminal cases involving carers convicted of stealing from clients include Gillian Kennedy, 36, jailed for for taking £20,000 from dementia sufferer Margaret Senior, 87.
The home-help found the pensioner’s savings on top of a wardrobe at her house in Kirklees, West Yorks.
Mandy Jackson, 43, was jailed after stealing £60,000 from the bank account of an 88-year-old care home resident. Jackson, from Stockport, Cheshire spent the cash on a new bathroom and a holiday.
Gary FitzGerald, chief executive of Action on Elder Abuse, said: “We believe there is insufficient deterrent to prevent care workers taking financial advantage of those they care for.”