Tory ‘disgusted’ after care home worker sacked

Health and social care officials in Aberdeen are being urged to review a contract with an employment agency after the “incomprehensible” sacking of a care worker wrongly accused of sexually assaulting an elderly man.

Tory councillor Alan Donnelly has written to service chief Murray Lees because he is angry that Premier Care dismissed the 31-year-old man from Nigeria even though he was not charged by Grampian Police.

The man was contracted out to VSA-run Woodgrove Nursing Home on May Baird Avenue, which looks after people with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Although no criminal action was taken against him, he was told by Banchory-based Premier Care compliance manager Mike Gray last week that he was being made “permanently inactive” with immediate effect.

Mr Gray told the man that, because Aberdeen City Council, Grampian Police and the Care Commission had been involved in the investigation and the story was in the public domain, “we could not on soul and conscience offer you to clients without disclosing the allegations”.

Premier Care chief executive Pam Easen said the decision to dismiss the man, who was suspended last month, was taken following an internal investigation.

She said she stood by the decision “100%” because the company has a responsibility to protect vulnerable people.

But Mr Donnelly, who has been assisting the man, said he had been given a “raw deal and treated with utter contempt”.

The councillor said: “I am absolutely disgusted with the way this has been handled. It is extraordinary and incomprehensible that a worker who was not charged with an offence because there was no evidence should lose his job.”

Ms Easen said: “We have a very stringent recruitment policy and followed our procedures by the book. We feel that we have made the best decision.”

A spokesman for Aberdeen City Council said Mr Lees will respond to Mr Donnelly’s letter in due course.

A VSA spokesman would not comment.