Dementia nurse found guilty of bullying patients
A nurSE abused dementia patients by pushing them over, trapping them in their bedclothes and barricading them in their rooms, a court heard.
Beverley Thompson, 47, was convicted yesterday of the horrific ill-treatment and neglect of three elderly residents at Livingston Care Home.
She was convicted of four offences committed at the home in September and October last year – after three carers gave what a sheriff described as ‘credible and compelling’ evidence.
Livingston Sheriff Court heard Thompson knocked patient Janet Mathieson off balance by lifting and pushing her from behind as she walked along a corridor.
She also put her leg against the stomach of Ann Mearns as the resident shouted ‘You’re hurting my belly!’ and forcibly pinned her to a chair. The court heard she left a carer ‘gobsmacked’ as she dragged another patient, Betty Murray, by the wrists and forcibly put her in a chair.
Thompson then turned to staff and said: ‘You saw that. I never used any violence whatsoever.’
She was further convicted of barricading a door to block Miss Murray in, pushing her onto a bed and wrapping the sheets tightly around her body. Thompson turned to a colleague, saying: ‘That’s the way you settle Betty!’
Thompson, of Bathgate, West Lothian, was cleared of pinching Margaret Burns by the nose and pulling her head back so she could pour medication down her throat.
The court ruled there was insufficient evidence.
Thompson denied all the allegations and said: ‘It just didn’t happen.’
But Sheriff Martin Edington returned guilty verdicts on the four linked charges, saying there was enough corroboration from staff.
He highlighted care assistant Jasmine Kelly’s reason for not reporting one incident as ‘particularly compelling’. The
‘Evidence was compelling’
sheriff said: ‘She said it was because she could lose her job – other staff had reported things and not been believed.’
In contrast, the nurse veered between being ‘strident’ and ‘evasive’. He told her: ‘I wasn’t persuaded by your medical evidence of arthritis.
‘You can work over 50 hours a week in a job that’s physically demanding but you can’t stand on one leg and put your leg over someone’s body.
‘I have no hesitation in rejecting your evidence.’
Thompson, who worked at the dementia unit for three years, denied she had become irritable due to fatigue.
Sheriff Edington called for background reports and told Thompson, who has no previous convictions, that he would sentence her on December 13.