THIS is the moment a cruel carer screamed at an 81-year-old in her bed: “I hope you die in your sleep you f***ing horrible cow.”
Callous Louise Harris, 42, hurled abuse at dementia sufferer Elizabeth Anne Shipton while she was meant to be looking after her.
Shocking footage the pensioner lying in her bed as Harris put her arm on the elderly woman’s chest and demanded to know where her money was.
When Elizabeth complained Harris was was hurting her, the carer yelled: “I don’t care, where’s your money?”
Harris was jailed at three months at Swansea Crown Court but Elizabeth’s family has filed an appeal saying the prison term was unduly lenient.
Sentencing, Judge Huw Rees said elderly people were entitled to be treated with “respect, dignity, and humanity”.
But he said Harris had been “heartless and cruel”, showing a “callous disregard” for her welfare.
Prosecutor Abud Hussain said the victim lay helpless in her bed thinking she was going to die.
All she wanted was to be left alone to sleep but Harris’ relentless aggression ruined her memories of her family home of some 60 years, he added.
Harris pleaded guilty to being a care worker who ill-treated the victim and to criminal damage.
She had originally been charged with attempted robbery because of her demands about Elizabeth’s money, but the Crown Prosecution Service dropped that charge before she was sentenced.
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.
Elizabeth’s daughter Tracy said her mum is “horrifically traumatised” and her mental scars “will never go”.
She said the family had known former neighbour Harris for many years and trusted her on the first day of a trial run as a carer for Elizabeth – until the camera caught her cruelty.
Tracy added: “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.”
She said she made Harris aware her mother was already in a fragile state having recently been in Morriston hospital for seven weeks with sepsis.
Elizabeth was also grieving the death of her husband, who she had been with since the age of 16.
She said: “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.”
After Tracy’s departure, Harris found a bottle of vodka in the fridge and downed it.
The court later heard she was a recovering alcoholic who had “succumbed to temptation”.
Tracy said the video showed her repeatedly hurling “obscenities in a guttural scream at the top of her lungs.”
At one point Harris went into the kitchen and waved a large kitchen knife around while trashing the property.
Tracy was horrified when she accessed the security system’s camera to check how things were going, and witnessed Harris abusing her mum.
Police later had to break Elizabeth’s door down because Harris had been waving a knife,” said Tracy.
The court heard the carer was “slumped on the floor” when officers entered the property.
Speaking after the case, Tracy said was outraged by this decision to drop the more serious charge.
She added: “Louise’s arm was on my mum’s chest and she could be heard saying, ‘You are hurting me.’ It beggars belief that they couldn’t see any physical assault there.”
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.”
