A hospital nurse was jailed for 14 months yesterday after she went on a spending spree with a dying patient’s bank card.
Leanne Wallace (40), targeted Leslie Rushworth, an elderly and weak person, because he was seriously ill, suffering from problems such as pneumonia and anorexia.
While he was under her care, she took a bank card from his wallet and used it to pay off a £900 loan, buy a £699 bed, spend £74 on wallpaper and buy items on Amazon, Teesside Crown Court was told.
He died at a hospice in Stockton, days after being transferred to University Hospital of North Tees.
The judge who jailed her said Wallace had ‘damaged the reputation of care workers in this country’.
Picture of Leanne Wallace outside Teesside Crown Court Following Leslie Rushworth’s admission to University Hospital of North Tees suffering from pneumonia, anorexia, and other deterioration she targeted him.
The crimes came to light after Mr Rushworth’s son noticed a message from the bank on his father’s phone about suspected fraud.
Initialy, he dismissed the message as spam. However, his family began to investigate further messages.
He found the order for the bed and discovered it was due to be delivered to one of his father’s nurses.
Wallace originally denied any responsibility, and she admitted to the court that she had erased data from her cell phone.
He then ordered a bed for her, after which she claimed that Rushworth had offered to repay the loan.
Police found no evidence of searches for any of the items on the patient’s phone or iPad.
Emma Atkinson, prosecuting, said all of the money had since been returned to his family, but the crimes had a ‘significant impact on the family in the last few days of their father’s life’.
Wallace, Hartlepool, pleaded guilty in April to four counts each of fraud and abuse of position.
Stephen Constantine, in mitigation, said his client was ‘disgusted, devastated and disappointed’ with her own behaviour and she had shown ‘some degree of understanding and remorse for the upset and pain that she had caused Mr Rushworth’s family’.
According to Mr Constantine, it occurred when Wallace was facing financial difficulties after her divorce.
The hospital had fired her, but she took on a new job as a carer.
A judge told Wallace (pictured above outside court) she had ‘damaged the reputation of care workers in this country’
View of Teesside Crown and County Court, Durham. The nurse was held in jail for 14 months Wednesday.
Passing sentence, Judge Howard Crowson said: ‘This was an appalling abuse of trust. Your selfishness was a complete shame. You ruined the family’s final hours with their father.’
The judge said Mr Rushworth was ‘rarely in any fit state to do anything for himself, he was barely able to communicate’.
He added: ‘There was no possibility of him using his bank accounts, he was simply a vulnerable victim.
‘I find it very hard to understand that desperation led you to this. Desperate people seldom consider purchasing a £700 bed. This is more an act of greed. You have damaged the reputation of care workers in this country.’
In an earlier interview, Mr Rushworth’s son Guy, 46, said: ‘I’m astounded that a human could do this and particularly somebody who was in charge of his care.
‘The nurse and everyone in that team knew there was only one way out of that hospital.
“He was actually in hospice or a coffin.” He was literally dying and that was known.’