Astonishing CCTV footage has revealed a carer ‘violently degrading’ a frail elderly man with dementia – as she hurled him around ‘like a rag doll’ just days before he passed away.
Cruel Bilikesu Olagunju, 42, who had been in the job just six days, was captured on camera ‘manhandling’ John Attard, 88, at his home in Bexley, Kent, a court heard.
Footage captured during the 45-minute visit reveals the ordeal from which the great-grandfather never recovered, according to his family.
Olagunju, who at the time was employed by Unique Personnel UK, stripped Mr Attard, threatened to beat him up and even dragged him across his living room floor.
She is also said to have ignored the elderly man as he repeatedly told her she was ‘hurting’ him.
At one point, Olagunju tells him: ‘Maybe I will beat you up. I will flog you. I will take you to the GP to get injections. I will call the police on you.’
The distressing images were filmed in the victim’s home on Christmas Eve 2022 on a camera set up by his son Chris.
The following day, Mr Attard was discovered unresponsive – with blood dripping down the side of his face.
The pensioner was rushed to hospital, where he remained unresponsive, and passed away ten days after the incident.
Olagunju pleaded guilty to one count of ill-treating or willfully neglecting an individual while working as a care worker.
She has now been given a six-week prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, while also being ordered to carry out 50 hours’ unpaid work, at Woolwich Crown Court in south-east London.
Speaking after the hearing, the victim’s son Chris Attard condemned her sentence as an ‘insult’.
He said that although a post-mortem could not prove it, he felt Olagunju’s actions had directly contributed to his father’s sudden decline and death.
He said: ‘If those cameras had not been there, that person could still be out there treating elderly people like this.
‘I was expecting a suspended sentence, but the length and community service aspect is an insult. What kind of a deterrent is that?’
The court obtained a breakdown of the CCTV footage, starting with Olagunju arriving at 11.20 am with the job of washing Mr Attard and making him breakfast.
After shouting at him to stand, he slips on the floor and as she struggles to dress him, she is seen stripping him in front of a window in full view of the street.
The carer is also shown dragging him by the arm and scruff of his collar across the floor and ‘yanking’ him up, causing ‘great distress’, the court was informed.
At one point, the defendant was heard calling her employer to explain that Mr Attard was on the floor and was instructed not to touch him and to call an ambulance.
The defendant ignores this request, and instead continued to haul him up herself while complaining ‘a man’ should have been sent to do the job.
She is also seen in the footage mocking Mr Attard by pouring marmalade into his coffee despite knowing he was diabetic and threatening to ‘flog’ him.
Chris Attard said he was horrified by how visibly distressed his father looked throughout, describing his face as ‘distorted’ while being ‘manhandled.’
He added: ‘She is physically trying to lift him like a rag doll. His face indicates the discomfort and pain he is feeling.
‘She lifts him off the floor, dragging him toward his armchair. He tells her: “My head is banging.”
The carer is heard on the footage saying to Mr Attard: ‘Me, I’ll flog you, flog you’, later adding: ‘Maybe I’ll beat you up. I’ll flog you. Take you to hospital, take you to GP to give injections and police.’
She is repeatedly told by Mr Attard throughout: ‘You are hurting me’.
The footage demonstrates her making breakfast while continuing to threaten violence and picking up a plastic marmalade sachet, squeezing its contents into his coffee.
She also pulls his table away, making it difficult for Mr Attard to reach any of the food – and spilling hot coffee on him in the process.
As she leaves the house, she tells him: ‘Bye – I will report you to the police.’
At Olagunju’s sentencing hearing, prosecutor James Benson said her conduct towards Mr Attard had taken multiple forms including ‘rough handling, verbal aggression, and degrading treatment’.
He described her actions as ‘brusque, inappropriate, and uncaring’ and said she ‘played on her victim’s vulnerability’.
The victim’s son Chris Attard broke down in tears as he delivered a statement to the court, saying: ‘The autopsy could not conclusively prove the carer was responsible – but the autopsy showed he had bruising on the left side of his chest.’
‘It was Christmas morning when I found my 88-year-old father unresponsive in bed. He was rushed to hospital and his room was declared a crime scene.
‘This was the morning after he was physically and verbally assaulted by the very person entrusted to care for him.
‘Three days after he was admitted to hospital I wrote a victim impact statement. My last words read: “I am yet to discover the long-term effect this may have on my dad and his physical and mental welfare.”
‘Well, now I know – he never recovered and died seven days later in hospital.’
Addressing Olagunju directly, he said: ‘An autopsy could not link your actions to his death – but I feel personally that your actions, in part, contributed to his sudden death.’
Chris described his father, who had five children, 11 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, as ‘kind-hearted, generous, compassionate, and funny’, adding: ‘He was still enjoying what life he had left.’
The distraught son said that re-watching the harrowing CCTV footage for the purpose of the case had had a profound impact on him, and his family.
He said: ‘For a very long time I was unable to get a full night’s sleep due to dissecting the CCTV over and over again in my head.
‘I constantly thought about the fear he must have felt – the indignity of being dragged around and then yanked up off the floor and unceremoniously thrown back onto his chair.
‘That must have been very distressing for him.’
Addressing Olagunju, Chris continued: ‘When all of this becomes a distant memory for you, our pain will still be here.
‘You can never ever take back the memories you left my father with at the end of his life, and the memories you have now left us with, for the rest of our lives.
‘If you find it hard to understand how I feel, then just imagine it was me assaulting your loved one on that CCTV, and I’m the one standing where you are now – what sentence would you like this court to give me?’
John was Olagunju’s first assignment as a care worker in the UK.
During sentencing, Judge Charlotte Welsh told her: ‘Frankly it beggars belief that someone would be allocated an elderly man with dementia as their first client.
‘Being a carer is a very, very difficult job and frankly, people don’t appreciate it until they need it. I am convinced that you had not received the sufficient training.’
She added: ‘Your actions are evident of your failure to treat Mr Attard as a person deserving of as much dignity and respect as the rest of us.
‘I accept that there was no malicious intent to your actions and you show genuine remorse. But none of this will help Mr Attard’s family.
‘They have lost a father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, and their memories of him are now tainted by what they have seen on the CCTV footage – and the way you behaved towards him.’
Olagunju, of Abbey Wood, wearing a light blue satin shirt and jeans, wept silently during the emotional statement.
Her defence barrister Mr Tijani said she accepted full responsibility for her conduct – and was ‘ashamed’ of how she had acted.
He continued: ‘She accepts that she failed in her duty as a carer. She has been suffering from mental anguish as a result of this incident and has instructed me to tell the family she is very sorry.’
In mitigation, Mr Tijani said Olagunju had no previous convictions and that Mr Attard had been her first patient after she arrived in the UK from abroad to be a carer.
He added: ‘On the CCTV, you can see a woman who was not trained properly to deal with the situation she was faced with.’
Speaking after the case, Chris Attard said: ‘From now on that woman is out of my head, and my mission is to expose this company – Unique Personnel.
‘They should have been in the dock alongside [Olagunju]. Had they done their due diligence she never would have been sent near an elderly person.
‘This is a care company sending people to the homes of elderly and vulnerable people and putting them at risk of harm.
‘I want to speak about that so this doesn’t happen to anyone else. They tried to excuse it by saying she had only been there six days. But where were the checks and the training?’
The company has been contacted for comment.
This conduct is abhorrent. It was evident from the video that she mistreated the man. She should have been given a much lengthier prison sentence and then deported as she had only just arrived in the UK.
This presents the most significant problem in our modern care industry – most of the ‘carers’ just don’t care.
I just can’t fathom how the judge said he hadn’t acted with malicious intent. She was a woman who was a heartless and vicious human being, and evidently, she cried in court, what were they, crocodile tears?
As for Unique Personnel, there were no inspection reports or ratings for this provider overall. However, I did manage to get some reviews online for them, with some saying that there had been some good carers but they also had some diabolical ones as well. That the staff had been difficult to liaise with. That their communication was appalling, and that they did not take clients’ needs seriously enough and failed to handle complaints with respect and efficiency.
This company was not recommended, and it said that their staff needed to become more person and client-centred as well as understanding and compassionate.
When this woman was given the position of a carer, the word ‘carer’ clearly got lost in translation.
I’m not sure what the judge was thinking or how the judge constitutes malicious intent. Did the judge believe that this was normal to treat an elderly person or any elderly person like this when you’re supposed to be caring for them?
There are numerous situations like this, and I would definitely not want to be cared for by a foreigner. These individuals clearly have different standards.
The judge said he accepted this woman had not had enough training. You don’t require training to be a kind and compassionate person. She was neither.
Third-world people imported – third-world behaviours. It’s hardly rocket science to work it out.
All of this makes me feel physically sick and resentful at what this poor proud man had to experience at the hands of this disgusting person.
Of course, we need people to work in our country, but what we don’t need are low lives who think they’re entitled to come to this country with what seems to be ‘pure hatred’ for our people.
This man’s last days on this earth were spent dying. These elderly people are frail and delicate and some are in a lot of discomfort. Intentional cruelty is out there visiting our loved ones and seemingly caring for them.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 