Carer jailed for stealing £5,000 (From Bournemouth Echo)
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Carer jailed for stealing £5,000
1:00pm Tuesday 24th July 2012 in News By Harriet Marsh
Jolanta Szczap arrives at Bournemouth Crown Court
A CARER stole more than £5,000 from an elderly woman with cerebral palsy in her care.
Jolanta Szczap, 40, was paid to look after 64-year-old Mary Edwards, who also has learning difficulties and poor eyesight, for two years.
But the Diverse Abilities Plus worker kept Miss Edwards’ cash card and frittered away £5,314 of her money in 36 transactions.
She had been trusted with the PIN number to help Miss Edwards with her day-to-day living, prosecutor Stuart Ellacott told Bournemouth Crown Court.
Charity bosses discovered the missing money in December last year and police found receipts at Szczap’s flat in Walpole Road, Bournemouth.
Mitigating, Thomas Horder said his client had become depressed while trying to divorce her husband, who lives with her son back in Poland.
Well-qualified Szczap, who had been working in the care industry for seven years, felt isolated, had trouble sleeping and began drinking heavily, he said.
Mr Horder said: “She will never be able to work as a carer again. That is really her biggest regret. She doesn’t know what she will do with the rest of her life.”
Szczap pleaded guilty to fraud in June. Handing her eight months in jail, Judge John Harrow said: “A person like Miss Edwards has to place her trust in a trusted person and you committed a double breach of trust: once to your employers and more importantly to this lady.
“It is difficult to think of a worse example of a breach of trust.”
He added: “The public and severely disadvantage people are entitled to put their trust in people like yourself, who should act accordingly.”
A Diverse Abilities Plus spokesman said later: “The missing funds were found through procedural checks. Families were immediately informed and took over from there.”
Insurance had covered the missing funds and the matter was resolved in the charity’s eyes, he said.
Comments(16)
Cordite
says...
1:27pm Tue 24 Jul 12
Old before my time
says...
1:45pm Tue 24 Jul 12
I paraphrase, but I think you get my point...
Deport her after she gets released and after she gets her public lashings.
itsallgammon
says...
1:47pm Tue 24 Jul 12
Is there a pit deep enough for this person?
Dancer94
says...
2:32pm Tue 24 Jul 12
Old Colonial
says...
2:46pm Tue 24 Jul 12
So that's OK then? Up go all our premiums thanks to this (insert suitable words here) who should be deported ASAP, but not after coming up with the missing cash herself.
chrspeters
says...
4:49pm Tue 24 Jul 12
There were many opportunities where I could have taken from them, but that trust along with my own integrity and strong bond with the client, was far more valuable to me to even contemplate it. Even when I was once really down on my heels and could hardly afford to own a car in which I needed to do my job.
Within my short experience as a Carer, I got to know many other Carers of who without doubt felt the exact same and I was so proud to be a part of them. However, the story here along with others similar I have heard over the recent past (including physical or mental cruelty), show that somehow these vermin do get into the system. As is often the case with paedophiles joining schools or young people’s organisations.
I can tell you right now that this wicked person has also damaged the very credibility of every carer throughout the country and created some mistrust to their clients (and who could blame them?) They will have to begin again. Her sentence for that alone should have been a lot higher. It’s like being at work and somebody steals from a colleague. Everybody feels bad about it even though they know for sure that they are totally innocent.
The real problem goes back to the Agencies that set up these care businesses (and they are forever growing). They get tender from local councils. Care for the elderly in every aspect is a very lucrative business (though many of the agencies will deny it). When I joined my first agency, I had to undergo a Police Check for any past criminal record.
At my second agency, I had to do the same annually (at my own expense I might add). Wages for Carers are very low, petrol expenses ridiculous, all training at my cost, long unsociable hours (even Bank Holidays or Christmas), mostly unpaid for running over or time taken driving from one home to another – no matter what the distance. It’s a job done out of pure dedication and most certainly not for the money.
Unless, as in this case, someone has another motive.
Just before I left and retired, I noticed a high influx of foreign workers. Some who hardly spoke our language. They just needed a job and the care industry was always asking for more staff – hence more clients and income for them.
Being British born, the Police check on me could go right back over my entire life. How can that possibly work for many immigrants coming into this country from who really knows where, and taking up that so entrusted role?
This is again another of Thatcher’s legacies, “Care in the Community and Privatisation”.
How did that song go,
“I hope I die before I get old”.
Be sure to do so because when you are unable to care for yourself, there are a whole lot of people out there to not only rip you off, but also your hard earned inheritance to your family.
burgerboy
says...
5:03pm Tue 24 Jul 12
Old Colonial
says...
7:37pm Tue 24 Jul 12
snake hips
says...
8:15pm Tue 24 Jul 12
BournemouthMum
says...
8:24pm Tue 24 Jul 12
That aside, what she did was despicable, the lowest of the low. At least she has been given an adequate sentence.
PATSYP
says...
9:37am Wed 25 Jul 12
elite50
says...
10:20am Wed 25 Jul 12
PATSYP wrote:If you can prove your statement go to the police otherwise you are "aiding and abetting".
Despicable thank goodness she has been dealt with correctly. Another local agency simply transferred the "carer" to an office job after she was caught stealing fro a vunerable elderly person
Jak Branksome
says...
12:11am Thu 26 Jul 12
chrspeters
says...
4:45pm Mon 6 Aug 12
Back in early 1980, I knew of a German guy who came to Bournemouth simply to learn English. He did not attend any language school but just did menial summer jobs to keep himself and slowly pick up the language. After the summer, he found himself out of work. He lived hand-to-mouth and did odd jobs here and there in between. Everybody, including myself, told him that he was from a country that is part of the EU –hence he is entitled to benefits to see him through. How wrong we all were.
Yes, in some way he was entitled and got a first benefit giro, but a few days after he received a letter from the Home Office stating in less simple words that he had become a ‘liability on the state and had two weeks to vacate the country’. He was in fact ‘deported’.
Two weeks after the deadline, I got a late visit from two very un-polite heavies from the Home Office, to check if he was still around. I had to show them a recent stamped letter from him in Germany to prove that he was not.
I had the same experience myself when I later joined him to live in Germany. I first found it very hard to get employment because I was not fluent in German. Again, everybody said that I should be entitled to something as I was a part of the EU.
Again not true. When I went to apply, they asked me for my passport and intended to keep it. My German friend snatched it off the assistant and we left hurriedly. Otherwise, I too would have been soon deported.
What I have strangely noticed, both in UK and in Germany, is that being an ordinary EU member counts for zilch. This is a club reserved only for the big boys. Also in both countries, I have found that people from outside the EU that obtain Political Asylum – count for everything and don’t even have to bother working to get it all. They got far more rights than any honest outside EU member just trying to make a new start in an EU country.
No this woman should be made to serve her low sentence, kicked out of the country and never ever allowed back again. Same goes for all other immigrants like her that break the law, especially including the so many criminal gangs that somehow get into our country to spread, drugs, prostitution and all other ‘Mafia’ type criminal activities.
In summary, UK can deport them but for some reason they do not, unless of course it affects the state purse.
All the rest is seemingly fine by them.
milly82
says...
1:49pm Sat 18 Aug 12
All those comments about deporting her are just ignorant.
The Renegade Master says...
1:26pm Tue 24 Jul 12