A former care worker who filmed herself crawling into a vulnerable pensioner’s room and threatening him has been told: “This was just cruelty.”
Shannon Ashley Anderson targeted William Maguire at Fodderty House Care Home in Dingwall, telling him: “I’ll gut you like a pig.”
She appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court for sentencing having previously admitted a charge of of ill-treating or wilfully neglecting the 79-year-old.
The previous hearing was shown a video clip, shot on Anderson’s mobile phone, which captured her crawling across the floor of his room before startling him.
Care worker’s chilling threat
Mr Maguire – who has since passed away – looked visibly distressed as the care worker recorded herself growling the chilling threat.
At that calling of the case, fiscal depute David Morton told the court that at the time of the offence – on September 22 last year – Anderson was employed as a care assistant at the facility.
He said Mr Maguire was “a vulnerable adult” with vascular dementia who was disabled on the right-hand side of his body due to a stroke.
Mr Morton told Sheriff Eilidh MacDonald: “The circumstances are somewhat odd.
“During the course of a night shift, Miss Anderson has videoed herself using her mobile phone acting in the manner libelled – entering his room, crawling towards his bed and thereafter touching and pinching his face as indicated.”
The court heard that Anderson had sent the video via social media to another member of staff, who had alerted others.
Before playing the video to the court, Mr Morton said: “The video captures the nature of the charge and brings it to life in a way that my verbal narrative could not.”
Carer crawled into pensioner’s room
In it, Anderson could be seen crawling along the floor into the elderly resident’s room, before startling him, pinching his face, and growling the threat.
Mr Morton told the sheriff: “It can be heard on the video, for the avoidance of doubt, ‘I’ll gut you like a pig’.”
At a sentencing hearing, Anderson’s solicitor Graham Mann said his client had some health issues and a “troubled past”.
He said she had been left anxious as a consequence of “the attention drawn” to the case, but conceded: “It was obviously a troubling case.”
Sheriff Eilidh MacDonald told Anderson: “It is a troubling case. This was just cruelty.
“You were a person responsible for caring for a very vulnerable individual – what you did was appalling and difficult to watch.”
‘You should feel ashamed’
Referencing a pre-sentencing report the sheriff said: “It says that you are ashamed. You should feel ashamed because this was an awful thing to do to somebody.”
Noting that the report indicated Anderson had shown “genuine remorse” and “taken responsibility” for her actions, Sheriff MacDonald placed her on a structured deferred sentence for three months.
She told Anderson, of West Drive, Dingwall, that was three months during which she would need to “take up social work help to try to understand the effects of your behaviour on others and to try to prevent you from behaving in this way in the future.”
The case will call again in February.
After the last calling of the case, Serena Fergusson, the manager of Fodderty House care home, said: “We were devastated for our resident and his family, because it happened, and it happened whilst in our care in our premises.
“Immediately it was brought to my attention the person concerned was suspended and consequentially dismissed. I alerted the Care Inspectorate and sought their guidance and support.
“I liaised with the family and we have dealt with this together.”