Newport Care Workers Filmed Attacks On Elderly

TWO young women filmed their sickening abuse of old people to entertain their friends. A court was told how the two former care home workers tormented their victims, both suffering from severe dementia, pinching them, pulling and contorting their faces, pushing a mobile phone at one woman’s face and putting their fingers in the mouth of another.

The abuse was filmed by one of the women, with both laughing at their distressed victims, one of whom called for them to stop.

Amy Lacey, of Hefford Road, East Cowes, and Carla Hetherington, of Green Lane, Shanklin, both 22, worked at The Orchard House Care Home, Fairlee Road, Newport, at the time of the incident.

They each pleaded guilty to two charges of wilful neglect.

Both wept at the Portsmouth Crown Court hearing last Friday as the stunned public gallery watched the mobile phone footage, reported to authorities by a horrified colleague.

“Lacey was showing the video laughing about it to another friend of theirs at the flat,” said Kate Lumsden, prosecuting.

For Lacey, Richard Germain said she had been planning to study nursing but her prospects were ruined.
He said: “It was irresponsible and immature. If there had been any kind of supervision at the care home it would have been stamped on right from the beginning.

“She will never again take up employment in this field. The punishment for her will be that she will not be able to follow her chosen career.”

For Hetherington, William Mousley said his client who had trained in child care, had been fooling around and not thought of the implications.

Judge Graham White told the women: “Nobody looking at the mobile phone recordings which we have all seen today will feel anything other than repugnance for what you did.

“Your victims were old and they were frail, both physically and mentally. You stripped them of their dignity as human beings and treated them as playthings. I can’t think of any more sickening behaviour by two young women in positions of responsibility towards the elderly.”

He told the women they were fortunate not to be jailed. Lacey was sentenced to a 12-month community order and 200 hours’ unpaid work. Hetherington was handed a 12-month community order and 150 hours of unpaid work.

A spokeswoman for the care home said: “The health and well-being of our residents is always of our utmost priority and for this reason we ceased to employ the staff involved. As soon as we uncovered this issue, we notified the police and have been working under their direction to help them secure a conviction.”