Sacked care worker cleared over assault claims

Michael Sedgwick told Stafford Crown Court that he believed the complaints were made because he had applied for a senior post at the Alma Court residential centre, and colleagues wanted to taint his name.

One of his former colleagues, Sarah Hawkins, alleged Sedgwick had punched 86-year-old dementia patient Jabez Edwards in the chest, causing him to fall backwards into his chair.

Sedgwick also denied Sarah Hannay's report that he had grabbed 81-year-old Dennis Mayner round the throat and forced him backwards onto the toilet. Sedgwick, 21, of Formby Way, Turnberry Estate, Bloxwich, was found not guilty of two separate charges of ill-treatment of a person lacking mental capacity.

The jury's verdicts were unanimous and the defendant was discharged. The prosecution alleged the incidents happened about an hour apart, the first in the lounge, the second in Mr Mayner's room. But logs from the home with detailed times, observations and care given by each employee showed Sedgwick was looking after other patients at those times.

He told the jury that just before he was dismissed from his post at the centre, in Heath Way, Heath Hayes, near Cannock, he had applied for promotion to a senior care assistant post and was doing as much as he could to impress.

On the day he was reported, he overheard 'the two Sarahs' talking about the vacant post and Ms Hawkins said she had applied for it. When Sedgwick revealed he had also applied, they did not look happy, he told the court. Later that same afternoon, on October 20 last year, senior nurse Nicola Archer told him to leave the premises immediately, without explanation. He was subsequently suspended and then dismissed.

Since being sacked he has left care work and has no intention of returning to it, he said following the conclusion of the hearing yesterday. He is now working in a warehouse.