Care employee admits ‘unacceptable’ conduct
A WORKER at the Áras Attracta care home has admitted his behaviour towards a resident was ‘unacceptable’.
He was speaking in court yesterday in a case concerning a number of staff members at the disabled care home who were secretly filmed by RTÉ allegedly assaulting residents.
Three segments from 190 hours of CCTV footage shot at the Co. Mayo care home were shown to the court.
Two showed staff sitting on the same resident in separate incidents between November 14 and 15, 2014. A third showed another worker pulling the same resident, who is unable to communicate verbally, backwards by the hood of her jersey.
Nursing care manager Pat McLoughlin was secretly filmed by a hidden camera sitting on Resident A in the sitting room of Bungalow 3 in the Swinford facility.
A hushed Castlebar District Court watched footage showing him running after Resident A as she headed in the direction of her favourite chair. But as the severely autistic woman sat in it, he could be seen sitting on top of her – something that led to her hitting out at him seconds later.
Asked yesterday what he was doing, he described it as ‘playful fun’.
He said: ‘I was about to leave Bungalow 3. I had my back to the door and [Resident A] hit me on the back twice. Somebody then told her to go and sit down.
‘I thought I might have a bit of interaction here so, she was racing [to her chair] and she got to her chair before I did. I sat down partially on her and partially on the side of the chair for a couple of seconds.’
He admitted: ‘What I did wasn’t acceptable but it was just a spur-ofthe-moment thing and a bit of fun that we were having, a bit of playfulness and no more than that.’
He said that rather than it looking like he deliberately sat on Resident A, he had intended to sit on the chair before her.
The State’s case is against Mr McLoughlin, 56, of Lalibela, Mayfield, Claremorris, Co. Mayo, and four other workers who are each alleged to have committed an assault in Bungalow 3 in November 2014.
The others are: Anna Ywunong Botsimbo, 34, of Low Park Avenue, Charlestown, Co. Mayo; Kathleen King, 56, of Straide, Foxford, Co. Mayo; Christina Delaney, 35, from Lissatava, Hollymount, Co. Mayo; and Joan Walsh, 42, from Curry, Co. Sligo. All five deny the charge.
Martin Maguire, a clinical nurse specialist at Áras Attracta, was asked if he considered Mr McLoughlin’s actions acceptable.
He replied: ‘That’s unacceptable.’
Earlier, when asked about his view of Mr McLoughlin, he said he had known him for about 14 years.
In that time, he said he ‘never had any concerns around Pat and his behaviour’. He added: ‘I would regard him as a competent nurse. It’s a challenging environment.’
Later, Mr McLoughlin told the court: ‘I accept what Mr Maguire said. It’s not acceptable.’
Footage of Mr McLoughlin’s colleague Christine Delaney sitting on Resident A was also shown to the court. Asked why she did this, Ms Delaney said she was trying to calm her down before she went to bed.
But when asked if she thought that sitting on Resident A was ‘the right thing to do in the circumstances’, Ms Delaney – who went from working in the facility’s canteen to becoming a healthcare assistant in 2006 – replied: ‘No.’
The court also heard that when Anna Ywunong Botsimbo was asked by gardaí on January 29, 2015, if pulling Resident A by her hood was acceptable behaviour, she replied: ‘No, of course not, but that is the way I was shown how to do it.’
The case continues today.