Carer caught slapping dementia sufferer let off with just a caution
A CARER caught repeatedly slapping a 78-year-old dementia sufferer escaped prosecution and was let off with a police caution.
Shocking images of Sabina Marsden being abused in her home were streamed live from a secret camera to the phone of her daughter, Gina Owen.
Mrs Owen rushed from her job in a nearby electrical shop and is seen on video bursting into the room and telling carer Stacey George: ‘Go now.’
George, 46, who also snatched a blanket from Mrs Marsden’s knees and shouted, ‘God, you stink’, was sacked by the firm employing her.
She admitted assault and Mrs Marsden’s family think she should have faced tougher punishment than a police caution. Mrs Owen, 46, said: ‘If I hit her that day I would have been a lot worse off than her.’
Mrs Owen and her sister Mandy Aston, 48, look after their mother in the evenings and at weekends but needed a carer for her during the day after their father Malcolm died.
George was caught abusing Mrs Marsden, from Kettering, Northamptonshire, last June soon after the family installed the secret camera. The health of the grandmother, who as well as dementia has diabetes and is partially blind, had declined and her daughters suspected that George, her carer for almost two years, had become lazy.
Mrs Owen said: ‘Within ten minutes of my sister Mandy leaving the house I was watching it on my phone and she slapped my mum four or five times. We only put the camera in because we thought she was being lazy. I didn’t expect to see that. I felt sick.
‘We took the video to the police and expected her to be charged but she got off with a caution. I’m not happy she got a caution because mum was just sat there not doing anything.’
She added: ‘We thought her decline was just her dementia to begin with. You used to walk in and she would grab hold of your hand really tight. She used to scratch her legs constantly.’
Mrs Aston said: ‘Looking back you think, was she trying to tell us something?’
Winner Lawal, chief operating officer of Kettering-based Mega Care, said the firm was ‘appalled’ by the actions of George and had referred her to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
He said Mrs Marsden’s daughters had expressed a preference for George as their care worker, adding: ‘There was no indication this staff member was capable of these heinous acts.’
A Care Quality Commission inspection after the incident found the company had carried out the required checks on new staff members. Northamptonshire Police said they would meet the family to discuss their decision not to pursue further charges against George.