Care staff tied up OAP with a towel
TWO cruel carers who tied up an 88-yearold dementia sufferer so they could have a quiet shift may now face jail.
Cosmin and Ana Focsa, a married couple from Romania, bound Brenda Lea with a bath towel and left her in bed.
When other night staff found the pensioner, she was dehydrated and drenched in sweat.
Judge Jeff Brailsford found the Focsas guilty of ill-treating and wilfully neglecting Mrs Lea at the Alistre Lodge nursing home in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire.
‘It was deliberate and wholly inappropriate,’ he said. ‘For your own purposes you bound her to restrain her for a considerable length of time. It may well have been fortunate that other staff checked on her when they did.’
He adjourned sentencing until next month for probation reports but warned: ‘All sentencing options are open, including prison.’
Cosmin, 37, and 40-year-old Ana were part of a four-person team covering a night shift on July 11 last year at the home, which has room for 43 residents, Blackpool magistrates’ court heard. Malcolm Isherwood, prosecuting, said Mrs Lea could sometimes be difficult and ‘feisty’. She had mobility problems as well as dementia and needed to be monitored regularly through the night.
Mr Isherwood said: ‘At 1am registered nurse Keiron Drane and care assistant Darren Hughes checked on her. She had gone to bed at 8pm. The patient was under a duvet and sheet.
‘They found all the bed wet through from sweat, as was her clothing and pillow. When they drew the duvet back they found that she had been tightly wrapped in a bath towel from her armpits to her feet.’
The prosecutor added: ‘She was wrapped tightly to restrict her movement and it was done to make the Focsas’ job easier. It was a callous, cruel and selfish act.’
The Focsas, from Blackpool, were reported to police and sacked. They had worked at the home for two months.
Giving evidence, Cosmin said that he and his wife denied the charges and accused staff of being jealous as they were allowed to work together on shifts. He also claimed that they had been discriminated against because they were Romanian.
But the judge said their version of events was ‘incredible and incapable of belief ’.
Manager of Alistre Lodge Lorraine Holt said: ‘They were both sacked immediately when we found out what had happened. We acted robustly and justice has prevailed.’
The Daily Mail has highlighted the shocking treatment of elderly and vulnerable people in nursing homes and hospitals as part of our long-running Dignity for the Elderly campaign.