UK-based Nigerian caregiver jailed for manhandling 88-yr-old man
A Nigerian caregiver, Bilikisu Olagunju, was caught on hidden camera violently mistreating a frail 88-year-old dementia patient in his UK home, just a day before he was found unresponsive and later died in hospital.
The shocking CCTV footage, filmed on Christmas Eve 2022 at John Attard’s residence in Bexley, Kent, shows Olagunju dragging the elderly man across the floor, stripping him, threatening violence, and ignoring his repeated cries of pain. “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,” she said during the 45-minute ordeal, reports DailyMail.
Olagunju, 42, who had been on the job just six days with care agency Unique Personnel UK, pleaded guilty at Woolwich Crown Court to one count of ill-treating or wilfully neglecting an individual in her care. She was sentenced to six weeks in prison, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to complete 50 hours of unpaid work.
The next morning, Mr. Attard was discovered unresponsive by his son, Chris, with blood dripping down the side of his face. He was rushed to the hospital but never regained consciousness, dying 10 days later. Although a postmortem could not confirm direct causation, his family believes the trauma hastened his death.
“If those cameras had not been there, that person could still be out there treating elderly people like this,” said Chris Attard. “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 reviewed a breakdown of the footage, which began with Olagunju arriving at 11:20 a.m. to bathe Mr. Attard and prepare breakfast. She is seen shouting at him to stand, stripping him in view of the street, and dragging him by the collar and arm.
At one point, she calls her employer to report that Mr Attard is on the floor and is advised not to move him but to call an ambulance. She ignores this and continues to haul him up, complaining, “a man” should have been sent for the task.
Olagunju is also seen pouring marmalade into Mr Attard’s coffee despite his diabetes, removing his table, and spilling hot coffee on him. Throughout, he pleads: “You are hurting me.” She responds: “Me, I’ll flog you, flog you,” and again: “Maybe I’ll beat you up. I’ll flog you. Take you to hospital, take you to the GP to give injections, and police.”
Chris Attard described his father’s face during the abuse as “distorted” with discomfort and pain. “She is physically trying to lift him like a rag doll. His face indicates the discomfort and pain he is feeling,” he told the court. “She lifts him off the floor, dragging him toward his armchair. He tells her: ‘My head is banging.’”
He added, “It was Christmas morning when I found my 88-year-old father unresponsive in bed. He was rushed to the hospital, and his room was declared a crime scene.”
Chris, who wept as he addressed the court, said, “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 the the hospital.”
Addressing Olagunju, he said: “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?”
Judge Charlotte Welsh said: “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 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. 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 cried silently in court during the hearing. Her lawyer, Mr. Tijani, told the court she accepted full responsibility and was “ashamed” of her actions. “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, Tijani said she had no prior convictions and had only just arrived in the UK, with Mr Attard as her first patient. “On the CCTV, you can see a woman who was not trained properly to deal with the situation she was faced with.”
Following sentencing, Chris Attard turned his attention to Unique Personnel UK, accusing the company of negligence. “From now on that woman is out of my head, and my mission is to expose this company – Unique Personnel,” he said. “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. They tried to excuse it by saying she had only been there six days. But where were the checks and the training?”
The news outlet noted that Unique Personnel UK had not commented on the incident at the time of the report.
