Care home worker convicted of dragging amputee pensioner along floor struck off

A DISGRACED care home worker who dragged an elderly amputee with dementia across a floor has been struck off.

Aine Mccreesh (29) was convicted in court last year of ill-treating or neglecting a mental health patient.

Now a NI Social Care Council fitness to practise committee has barred her from the profession.

It said she “displayed a lack of understanding and compassion when providing care to this vulnerable service user” and her criminal behaviour brought the profession into disrepute.

Mccreesh, of Dobbin Hill, Armagh, was convicted of the single charge at Armagh Magistrates Court, sitting in Newry, last April and given a suspended sentence.

An appeal in October failed, but Judge Gordon Kerr KC did remove her suspended sentence in favour of a £250 fine.

The court heard the victim, an elderly man suffering from dementia and who had had a leg amputated, regularly “bum shuffled” his way around Hamilton Court Care Home in Armagh.

But on July 4, 2022 when Mccreesh saw him doing so, declared: “To f*** with this, I’m not sitting here watching him all night.”

Grabbing the disabled pensioner by both arms, Mccreesh “pulled him out of the day room and dragged him into the hallway”, the court heard.

Mccreesh did not attend the NISCC hearing last month and the committee was told she had indicated she did not intend to engage with the fitness to practise process.

Solicitor Anthony Gilmore, representing the council, said Mccreesh had been working at Hamilton Court Care Home for nine years and her employer stated there were no previous allegations against her.

The committee noted evidence she dragged the vulnerable man from the day room into the hallway, and that this was in contravention of his care plan.

It said: “The care plan directed that when the service user displayed challenging behaviour, the correct approach to de-escalate was to move away from the service user.

“The committee noted the evidence that (Mccreesh) was familiar with this service user, having cared for him for for a while.

“The committee found that the registrant’s actions displayed a lack of understanding and compassion when providing care to this vulnerable service user.”

It found her fitness to practise impaired due to her conviction.

It said mitigating factors included that there had been no previous allegation against Mccreesh, and she had a good work history.

It added she attended a police interview voluntarily and co-operated with the PSNI investigation; the incident was stressful and challenging, and there was no evidence of any harm caused to the pensioner.

But Mr Gilmore told the committee Mccreesh did not express any remorse, “and appeared to take the view that she had not done anything wrong”.

He said she had not provided the committee with any explanation for her actions.

In its published determination, the committee concluded “a removal order was the only sanction appropriate to protect the public and to maintain public confidence in the social care profession and the council as its regulator”.

It said Mccreesh had shown no insight or remorse.

It also said it had had no evidence of Mccreesh’s concern for, or empathy with, the service user.

“The committee had no evidence before it of remediation by the registrant, nor had it any information to indicate that the registrant was unlikely to repeat her criminal behaviour in the future.

“The committee considered that the registrant had failed to express any insight or remorse, particularly in relation to the seriousness of her criminal conviction and the risk of harm which her behaviour presented to the service user

“The committee considers that a removal order will ensure that the registrant does not have an opportunity to repeat her criminal behaviour.”

At the Magistrates Court hearing last April, a solicitor for McCreesh said his client had worked as a care assistant from the age of 17 and had lost a job she loved.

Lodging a plea in mitigation, he said effectively her “life has been destroyed” by this single incident.

Mccreesh has 28 days to appeal the NISCC Committee’s removal order decision.