Lifetime ban for social worker who embezzled £26,000

Jacqueline Powell stole money from five elderly and vulnerable people in her care over a two-year period.

A senior Scottish social worker who stole £26,000 from old people in her care has been banned from ever working again.

Jacqueline Powell, 57, was jailed for 12 months earlier this year after she admitted stealing the money from five elderly vulnerable people over a two-year period.

The experienced social worker “abused her position of trust” and knowledge of her client’s financial accounts to telephone transfer money into her own bank account.

Her thieving went unnoticed by bosses at South Ayrshire Council until she handed herself in and confessed her crimes.

Powell has now been struck off the register after being found guilty of misconduct at a hearing in Dundee.

The three-person panel at the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) agreed that Powell – who is currently incarcerated at HMP Greenock – should never work again.

They ruled that her embezzlement of £26,700 between April 1, 2008 and March 31, 2010, “shattered” public trust and confidence in the profession.

SSSC solicitor Nicola Elliott told the misconduct subcommittee: “Ms Powell has used the circumstances of the vulnerable service users for her own financial gain, and thus exploited the service users.

“She used her knowledge of vulnerable service user’s finances for her own financial gain.

“Social workers must uphold the public trust and confidence but it is shattered by embezzlement in this complexity.”

Powell, who joined the council’s social work team in 1994, was working at an older people’s mental health unit at Ailsa hospital in Ayr. Part of her role at the hospital was looking after dementia sufferers, including their financial affairs.

She started stealing in April 2008, when she transferred cash into her own account through telephone banking and then went on to make transactions from various accounts from her home in Troon.

Even after she had been suspended two years later, Powell transferred a further £2700 into her own account, which she told police was to pay off her husband’s crippling gambling debts.