Edinburgh carer banned after disabled woman left starving and hallucinating
Former carer given tagged curfew after stealing from vulnerable women
An Edinburgh carer mistreated a disabled woman so severely she was left starving and suffered hallucinations due to the lack of medication provided.
Melanie Wishart failed to supply the woman with her prescribed medication and did not feed her properly while employed to look after her at an address in Edinburgh in 2019.
She also stole cash, medication and cigarettes from the 63-year-old woman, who has since passed away.
Wishart, 53, also stole £80 in cash from a second elderly service user, aged 68 at the time, while employed as a carer at the woman’s home in the Capital in December 2014.
Wishart has avoided a custodial sentence following an appearance at Edinburgh Sheriff Court but will now be banned from working with vulnerable adults in the future,
She pleaded guilty to two theft offences and one of wilfully neglecting a woman when she appeared in the dock at the capital court last month.
She returned for sentencing on Monday where her lawyer Addison Baker said her client had been experiencing difficulties with alcohol at the time and she no longer works as a carer.
Ms Baker said: “There is really no shying away from the fact these are serious offences she has pled guilty to.
“They involve an abuse of trust on a vulnerable individual.
“She accepts and is very honest about her use of alcohol. Her memory of all the details are limited.”
Sheriff John Cook described Wishart’s conduct as “unconscionable” but said he understood her problems with alcohol were a factor at the time of the offending.
Sheriff Cook said: “You were stealing from one of the persons whom you were giving care while depriving medication and nutrition to one as it appeared you couldn’t be bothered to go through the proper process.
“The person involved experienced hallucinations and went hungry due to you not providing nutrition for them.
“That is an awful state of affairs to get into.”
The sheriff said the offences had not been “intentional cruelty but seem to have been reckless” and he could step back from imposing a custodial sentence.
Wishart, of Granton, Edinburgh, was sentenced to a community payback order as a direct alternative to custody where she will have to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work.
She will have to wear an electronic tag and stay within her home between 8pm and 6am for the next 200 days as part of a restriction of movement order and told to pay £80 in compensation.
The sheriff also said Wishart’s name will be now forwarded to Scottish Ministers for her to be added to be list of those banned from working with children and vulnerable adults in the future.
Wishart pleaded guilty to stealing £80 from a woman while employed as a carer between December 15 and 16, 2014.
She also admitted to stealing money, medication and cigarettes and ill-treating or wilfully neglecting a woman and depriving her of medication and nutrition, all between January 1 and November 20, 2019.