A carer was filmed abusing an 81-year-old dementia sufferer and shouting ‘I hope you die’.
The family of the victim, Elizabeth Anne Shipton, have shared their footage of the shocking meltdown by carer Louise Harris, who drunkenly shouted at the pensioner: “I hope you die in your sleep you f***ing horrible cow.”
As Elizabeth lay in her bed at her Pontardawe home, Harris knelt down and placed her arm on the elderly woman’s chest, demanding to know where her money was. Elizabeth complained that the arm was causing her pain but the carer yelled back: “I don’t care, where’s your money?”.
Last week at Swansea Crown Court, the 42-year-old was sentenced to three months in prison, a sentence that the victim’s family believe should be significantly longer. Elizabeth is “horrifically traumatised” following her two-hour ordeal, and her mental scars “will never go”, her daughter Tracy Faram told us.
Tracy has lodged an appeal arguing the sentence was unduly lenient. She had known Harris, a former neighbour, for many years and had trusted her, never imagining she was capable of such cruelty, reports Wales Online.
“She’d been a carer since she was 18. I checked everything with her – she was trained on dementia, manual handling, incontinence. I’ll never get my head around how she could do this.”
Tracy had informed the carer that her mother was already in a fragile state, having recently spent seven weeks in Morriston Hospital with sepsis. She was also mourning the death of her husband, whom she had been with since the age of 16.
“My mother had come out of hospital in December, my dad’s funeral was in January, and then this happened in February. Louise knew everything my mother was going through.
“I’d explained to her that knitting was the only thing helping my mother through the grief – it was giving her something to live for – and after I left the house Louise got drunk and ripped up my mother’s knitting. It was just cruel.”
While awaiting a care package to be arranged by social services, the family had posted on Facebook seeking a carer, which was responded to by Harris. The assault occurred on the first and only occasion she looked after Elizabeth, whose family were treating it as a trial period.
Tracy said: “She was meant to stay for four hours. I was there for the first hour and Louise seemed amazing. Almost as soon as I left she turned.”
Following Tracy’s departure, Harris discovered a bottle of vodka in the fridge and consumed it. The court later heard she was a recovering alcoholic who had “succumbed to temptation”.
Harris’ fury appeared to be triggered by Elizabeth accidentally pressing her Lifeline button, which prompted a phone call to a crisis response helpline.
This occurs frequently, said Tracy, and the helpline operator swiftly ended the call after Harris said everything was fine. But this harmless moment seemed to enrage Harris to the point she began screaming in the victim’s face.
The carer yelled that Elizabeth was “a horrible cow” and repeatedly hurled obscenities in a scream at the top of her voice.
At one point, Harris went into the kitchen and brandished a large kitchen knife while wrecking the property, the court heard.
Tracy was horrified when she accessed the security system’s camera to check on things, only to witness Harris abusing her mum.
“The police had to break the door down because she’d been waving a knife,” said Tracy.
The court heard the intoxicated carer was “slumped on the floor” when police entered the property.
Prosecutor Abul Hussain said the victim lay helpless in her bed thinking she was going to die. All she had wanted was to be left alone to sleep but instead Harris’ relentless aggression ruined her memories of her family home of some 60 years.
Harris, of Cwrt y Waun, Rhydyfro, Pontardawe, had no previous convictions. She pleaded guilty to being a care worker who ill-treated the victim and to criminal damage.
During the sentencing, Harris’ lawyer Andrew Evans said his client was genuinely remorseful for her “wholly unacceptable behaviour”, which he said was the result of her finding the vodka in the fridge.
Judge Huw Rees handed down a three-month jail term, of which 40% will be served in custody, a sentence that felt completely inadequate to Tracy, although she said: “The judge’s hands were tied by the sentencing guidelines. You could see he was raging.
“For her to be serving just over a month is unbelievable when you think what we’ve had since February. We’ve been living this day in, day out, with my mother getting worse.
“Louise told my mum she lived up the road and would be coming back. My mum can’t be left on her own at all now. She keeps thinking Louise is going to come back and she has such vivid flashbacks that she’s been put on sedatives.
“The effect is my mum will not wear the Lifeline device because she thinks if she presses it the same thing will happen. We’ve had to fit a new front door with glass in the middle so she can see if someone is on the other side.
“I want to advocate for cameras in homes where there are carers, because what if we didn’t have this camera?”
Judge Rees stated that elderly individuals deserved to be treated with “respect, dignity, and humanity”, but the defendant had demonstrated a “heartless and cruel” attitude, showing a “callous disregard” for her wellbeing.