A carer who stole money from a 90-year-old Alzheimer’s sufferer was today sentenced after she was filmed stuffing cash into her bra during a home visit.
Sarah Leacy was today sentenced to complete 80 hours of supervised, unpaid work and ordered to pay costs totalling £700 after she was convicted of two counts of theft at Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.
An estimated £300 is believed to have been stolen from the victim between June 2013 and July 2014, with two of the thefts beingin captured on CCTV.
Leacy was caught on camera taking the money from a locked cash box in the kitchen of Monica Flanagan, 90, when she went to the elderly woman’s Putney home on a care visit.
Mrs Flanagan’s daughter, Annemarie Key, had set up a secret camera in the house after she noticed money going missing from the tin.
Leacy, 33, can be seen in the kitchen chatting to Mrs Flanagan, who was in another room, as she rifles through the cash tin and removes the cash and shoves a £10 note into her bra.
Ms Key, a freelance journalist, said Leacy should never be allowed to work in the care sector.
She told the Standard: "I just thought 'how brazen'. It just showed a complete disregard for caring. It wasn't just the theft, as far as I'm concerned; she blatantly didn't care."
Ms Key said she understood that carers work hard for relatively low wages, but added: "They shouldn't take it out on the people they're caring for.
"It's going on, probably, a lot more than people think. It's absolutely outrageous.”
Detective Constable Steve Isom of Wandsworth CID said: "The family of the 90-year-old victim trusted Leacy with the care of their Mother who suffers with severe Alzheimers. This case demonstrates a clear abuse of that trust.
He added: "Despite two thefts being recorded on CCTV that was installed by the victim's family, Leacy has never admitted or apologised for her actions even when faced with the CCTV evidence.”
