Louise Harris, 42, has been jailed for abusing Elizabeth, 81, and waving a kitchen knife around in her home – but the family of the victim say the sentence is unduly lenient
A carer who screamed ‘I hope you die in your sleep you f***ing horrible cow’ in the face of a 81-year-old dementia patient has been jailed.
Louise Harris, 42, is now behind bars after abusing Elizabeth Anne Shipton — the woman she was supposed to be looking after. Harris, of Cwrt y Waun, Rhydyfro, Pontardawe, Wales, answered a plea from Elizabeth’s family for help caring for the pensioner while a formal care package was put in place.
Harris and Elizabeth’s daughter, Tracy Faram, agreed to a four-hour ‘trial’ shift at her family home in February. It was the only time Harris was left alone with Elizabeth.
After Tracy left her mother an hour into the shift, Harris became infuriated when Elizabeth accidentally pressed her Lifeline button, which triggered a phone call to a crisis response helpline. Even though call operators ended the call once Harris told them it wasn’t intentional, the carer was enraged.
She started screaming abuse at Elizabeth, calling her a ‘horrible cow’. At one point, Harris knelt down and placed her arm on Elizabeth’s chest, while the pensioner was in bed, and demanded to know where her money was.
Elizabeth complained the arm was hurting her but the carer yelled: “I don’t care, where’s your money?”
Later, Harris began waving a large kitchen knife around while trashing the property, Swansea Crown Court heard. This was the moment Tracy leapt into action, witnessing the events on her CCTV cameras.
She called the police who had to break down the door. Cops found Harris ‘slumped on the floor’.
Sentencing Harris, Judge Huw Rees said elderly people were entitled to be treated with ‘respect, dignity, and humanity’ but that the defendant had been ‘heartless and cruel’, showing a ‘callous disregard’ for her welfare.
In mitigation, lawyer Andrew Evans said recovering alcoholic Harris found a bottle of vodka in Elizabeth’s home, and ‘gave into temptation’ after Tracy left, and downed the booze.
He added his client was genuinely remorseful for her ‘wholly unacceptable behaviour’. Harris was jailed for three months after pleading 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 (CPS) dropped that charge.
Tracy has now launched a bid to review the ‘unduly lenient’ sentence. 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.”
