WEDS PM: Three Batley care home staff cleared of neglect charges

Feb 4 2009 By Andrew Jackson

THREE women accused of neglecting an 87-year-old woman who suffered third degree burns after she was placed on a commode of hot water were today cleared of all charges.

Registered nurse Andrea Garrick, 38, and care assistants Jodie Atkinson and Danielle Schofield, both 22, were on trial at Leeds Crown Court for wilful neglect of Alzheimer’s sufferer Violet Smith.

But Judge Geoffrey Marson QC today ruled there was no case to answer and discharged the three defendants from the neglect charges.

Mrs Smith, who had been a patient at the Charlton Centre for Alzheimer’s and Dementia, on Carlinghow Hill, in Batley, since 2000, was taken to hospital with severe burns to 4% of her body in January 2008.

A day earlier, Garrick, of Bevor Crescent, Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire; Atkinson, of Doubting Road, Dewsbury, and Schofield, of Thornton Road, Dewsbury, had placed her on the commode in an attempt to treat constipation and haemorrhoids.

Atkinson told the court during the trial she would never have placed Mrs Smith on the commode if she thought it was unsafe, and said she had asked Garrick about the safety of the procedure.