Nurse jailed for 12 months after giving drugs to pensioner before stealing his cash

An NHS hospital nurse who supplied drugs to a pensioner has been jailed for what a judge called “despicable” crimes.

Sarah Papachristophorou (pictured) admitted supplying substances to the 77-year-old victim and stealing up to £1,000 from the man.

The 47-year-old was sacked from her job at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham after the allegations came to light.

She was caught when the victim’s suspicious relatives set up a secret camera. The resulting CCTV showing her taking cash was played before her sentencing in court.

The former health worker, a nurse for more than 20 years, had also pleaded guilty to supplying the man, who was a family friend, with zopiclone, tramadol and diazepam.

She had taken the class C drugs from her workplace, which the sentencing judge at Birmingham Crown Court described on Thursday as “a gross breach of ethics”.

Her barrister Daniel Church asked for a suspended jail term, adding the former nurse, of Four Oaks, Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham, had shown genuine remorse.

But Judge Philip Parker QC said the aggravating features of the case were “odious and despicable” and jailed the married mother-of-two for 12 months.

A spokesman for the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust said Papachristophorou no longer worked for the organisation, having been dismissed on May 10.

_{Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2017, All Rights Reserved. Picture (c) Matthew Cooper / PA Wire.}