Social worker removed from register for fraud against service user

A social worker has been removed from the General Social Care Council’s register for defrauding a service user.

Kim Malpas obtained four cheques signed by a mental health service user Ms A between January and April 2009 and used them to pay her own bills.

She had tried to conceal her dishonesty by obtaining a number of cheques and making false entries on the cheque book stubs.

In January 2010 Ms Malpas was convicted of four charges of Fraud by Abuse of Position and sentenced to 12 weeks imprisonment at Stockport magistrates’ court. The following June she was given a conditional discharge for theft after stealing items worth £78 from a supermarket.

The conduct committee decided to remove Ms Malpas from the register after concluding that her convictions represented “serious examples of misconduct and dishonesty”.

“The fraudulent conduct towards a vulnerable service user, which took place over a matter of weeks, is fundamentally incompatible with continuing to be a registered social worker,” it said.

Her behavior was compounded, the committee found, by the fact that she was convicted for theft four months after her imprisonment for fraud.