TWO carers have been found guilty of abusing vulnerable patients at a residential home in Southall.
Sonika Limbu and Pargarsh Sahota were filmed by a co-worker at Dormers Wells Lodge in Telford Road, which caters for people with dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease.
A third defendant, Kulwinder Ahir, 33, of Hounslow, was cleared by a jury of similar charges on Wednesday. All three had denied mistreating patients.
On one occasion, 93-year-old Ronald Gatwood was punched in the face by Sahota, Isleworth Crown Court was told.
Prosecutor Jennifer Knight said Mr Gatwood was taken to the toilet when he was struck.
She said: "He resisted having his trousers pulled down and being put on the loo and Pargarsh Sahota became angry with him and punched him on the side of the face."
The incident was witnessed by care assistant Slawomira Kowallowska, who had worked at another care home in Hanwell before moving to the Southall home in 2005.
She had started in May at Dormers Wells Lodge, which has room for up 45 patients, but decided the treatment of patients was abusive and did not meet basic standards of decency.
Ms Kowallowska contacted an elderly care service and was sent a pen containing an undercover camera, which she used in August and September 2010.
Ms Knight said: "The defendants ill-treated one or more of the residents in their care in a variety of ways including the man-handling or rough treatment of them, shouting at and bullying them."
The patients, including Matthew O’Leary, then 73, Margaret Smith, who was 85, and Arthur Layne, 86, were said to have been forcibly taken to the loo when they did not want to go, shouted at, ridiculed, pushed and slapped.
Ms Knight said the carers must have known that to treat dementia sufferers in their care aggressively and roughly amounted to ill-treatment.
Sahota, of Darwin Drive, Southall, and Limbu, 25, of Webbs Road, Hayes, were found guilty of mistreating patients under the Mental Health Act. They will be sentenced on March 9.
