Nurses await sentencing for abusing patients

Two nurses found guilty of abusing elderly and mentally ill patients at a nursing home were being sentenced today.

Registered mental nurse Isla Irving, 27, was convicted earlier this month of eight charges of ill treatment and one charge of willful neglect of patients at Blackmill Nursing Home Care Centre, near Bridgend in south Wales.

Her boss, Karen Morrell, 35, of Bridgend Road, Aberkenfig, was found guilty of the willful neglect of an elderly patient.

The jury at Cardiff Crown Court heard that Irving, Of Dunraven Street, Aberkenfig, had given one patient too high a dose of a sedative and had asked a medically unqualified part-time carer to inject another patient with insulin.

She had also neglected the request of a resident to be taken to the toilet, and was found guilty of rough handling, verbal abuse and taunting patients.

Most of the patients concerned were in their 80s and 90s and suffering from dementia during the period when the mistreatment took place - between 1997 and 1999.

Paul Lewis QC, prosecuting, told the jury at the opening of the trial: ‘‘In a nutshell this case concerns the prolonged, systematic and sometimes distressing abuse of elderly and mentally infirm residents of a private nursing home.’’

Another registered mental nurse, Steffan Spedding, 28, of North Cornelly, near Bridgend, admitted six charges of ill treating patients at Blackmill and will be sentenced at a later date.