Community care worker Julie Taylor sentenced

A community care worker who conned a vulnerable elderly woman out of more than £3,000, and administered an injection on another victim without authority, has been sentenced.

Julie Taylor of Wood Street, Middleton, pleaded guilty to 12 counts of theft at Bolton Crown Court and was jailed at an earlier hearing for six months.

She also pleaded guilty to common assault at a separate hearing, after giving a man an abdominal injection with no authority.

On Thursday 17 March 2011, she was sentenced to 28 days in prison for this offence.

Taylor worked in a managerial role as a care liaison officer whose responsibility was to visit extremely vulnerable people in their own homes and manage their care plans.

On Friday 12 March 2010 she went to see her victim, a housebound 86 year old lady who was dependent on her care workers.

The victim asked Taylor to withdraw cash for her. Despite knowing that this would be a direct breach of her terms of employment, Taylor took the victim’s card and PIN and withdrew the money. The victim received the cash that day.

Taylor however retained the card and between 15 and 29 March 2010 she made 12 unauthorised transactions at 12 different cash machines stealing a total of £3,055.34.

The victim only discovered the theft when she opened her bank statement on 29 March. She cancelled her card and contacted the police.

A police investigation was initially complicated by the fact that two other carers went to the victim⿿s house on 12 March. However CCTV footage from some of the ATM machines clearly identified Taylor withdrawing the cash at the times shown on her bank statement.

In June 2010, Taylor went to visit a man who had just had vascular surgery and had been diagnosed prostate cancer. Taylor was told that the man needed an abdominal injection for the prostate, which could only be administered by a registered nurse.

Despite this, Taylor carried out the injection and she was only confronted about this when nurses noticed that the man had an injection which was not recorded.

Police Constable Ruth Spencer said; “Taylor was employed by her company in a position of trust and she used this to take advantage of vulnerable people. She was fully aware of what she was doing and her actions have had a detrimental effect on her victims.

“Greater Manchester Police treats the abuse of vulnerable members of our community as a priority and will seek to put all offenders before the courts. We work closely with social services and are grateful to them and Taylor’s employers for their assistance in this investigation.

“Taylors abuse of trust undermines the valuable work the vast majority of care workers undertake. Community care workers enable people suffering with physical and mental ill health the choice to remain living in their family homes, retaining dignity and some level of independence. It is vital that Taylor is prevented from ever working with vulnerable people again”.