Two callous care workers have been jailed for abusing dementia patients at a Salford residential care home.
Abana Arshad, 24, of Crumpsall and Amy Greenhalgh, 24, of Eccles, were each convicted of ill-treating a person without mental capacity.
Their case was adjourned until from November pending the completion of pre-sentence reports. They were sentenced earlier today at Manchester and Salford Magistrates' Court.
Ill-treating or wilfully neglecting a person without mental capacity is an offence under section 44 of the Mental Health Capacity Act 2004.
The offence has a maximum penalty of 26 weeks' custody and/or an unlimited fine on summary conviction; 5 years' custody and/or an unlimited fine on conviction on indictment.
The despicable duo committed their crimes whilst working as carers at the Laburnum Court Care Home in Salford, which offers around the clock nursing care for elderly residents with complex medical and mental health needs.
The offence which was subject to the specimen charge took place on 15th July 2018, when the pair were working together on Laburnum Court's specialist 31-bed elderly mentally infirm (EMI) unit.
You can read further details of Arshad and Greenhalgh's crime in our earlier article.
The pair conspired to cover up their crime by smearing a colleague and trying to shift the blame onto a vulnerable, elderly resident of the home. They have shown no remorse.
Ian Cochrane, mitigating for Arshad, said: "She led an exemplary life and was hard working and law abiding. She embarked upon a nursing degree with an ambition to become a nurse.
"But a long term relationship broke down and that was the catalyst for the course coming to an end. She went back to the care home on more of a temporary role still with the ambition to resume that nursing degree but that's not going to happen now virtue of these convictions."
Matthew Wallace, mitigating for Greenhalgh, said: "She wasn't the instigator - she was just present and she joined in.
"She is somebody who has struggled always to fit in and says she felt bullied and ostracised in dealings with other persons. She was new and it was not always easy for her to develop relationships.
"The motivation was more to fit in than to cause harm. The person she is most likely to harm is herself."
District Judge James Hatton, sentencing the pair, said: "The victims deserve more from two young people who should have been caring for them. They should have been treated with dignity, yet they were not. They should have been treated with respect, yet they were not. Instead these two defendants treated the victims like they were there for their own amusement.
"They mocked and bullied people who were unable to protect and defend themselves and they never demonstrated any genuine remorse for their behaviour."
Arshad and Greenhalgh were each sentenced to 20 weeks' immediate custody.
They were also ordered to pay £115 victim surcharge.
Based on the information available, the pair appear to been sentenced fairly lightly.
There are several aggravating factors that sit very uneasily in this case - the lack of remorse, the vulnerability of the victims, the degrading treatment of the victims, the abuse of trust of the offenders, the attempts to conceal evidence and wrongly apportion blame. There doesn't seem much in the way of genuine mitigation - a few sob stories about not fitting in and being the victim of bullying doesn't quite cut the mustard.
Given the nature of these offences, it is unlikely the District Judge will have sentenced anything similar previously. In this case there no guidelines to assist with sentencing, but it feels outside the normal sentencing range of the Magistrates' Court. In the Judge's shoes I would have been inclined to commit the case to the Crown Court sentencing.
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