A FORMER care home worker has been jailed after abusing vulnerable residents at a nursing home.
Fiona Salmon, 40, of Fore Street, Camborne, was handed a nine-month prison sentence at Truro Crown Court today at 2.45pm.
She was found guilty earlier this year on seven counts of ill-treating or neglecting residents suffering from insufficient mental capacity at Cornwallis Care Services' nursing home in St Ives.
She used physical and verbal violence against residents suffering from dementia between June 1, 2011, and January 25, 2012.
The trial heard how she had sat on the legs of vulnerable patient June Pope and sprayed deodorant in the face of frail elderly residents. Philip Lee, for the prosecution, said other offences varied from slapping and rough handling, to calling elderly residents names such as a "dirty b***h" and telling them their breath stank of dog mess.
Colleague Joanna Clarke witnessed most incidents, including Salmon washing a resident's face with a flannel so hard it caused a nosebleed, squeezing talcum powder into a woman's face and calling her a "grubby b***h".
Miss Clarke also told the court Salmon flung a resident on her bed so hard she hit her head on a metal railing and pinched a patient's upper arm.
Fellow assistant Stephanie Fielding said she saw Salmon digging her nails into a patient's skin.
Salmon admitted that as a "stockier" person she had more strength than her colleagues but she decisively denied using foul language, telling a patient her breath stank of dog mess and other claims.
