A Co Armagh health care worker has been given a two-year probation order and 100 hours of community service for taking and sharing degrading videos and photos of vulnerable patients in a mental health facility.
Ciara Corvan, 28, from Cathedrals View in Armagh city, admitted seven counts of the ill treatment or neglect of patients on dates between October 2022 and November 2023.
According to court documents, the offences involved two female and two male patients who were in her care at the Bluestone Dementia Unit in Craigavon Area Hospital. They all had advanced dementia.
It is the first prosecution of its kind in Northern Ireland.
Families say Corvan mocked and degraded patients
At a sentencing hearing at Craigavon Crown Court Judge Patrick McGurgan was told that Corvan had written a letter of apology to the families of her victims.
Her barrister told the court that she was profoundly sorry for the pain and suffering the victims and their families had suffered as a result of her actions.
Relatives of the victims were in court as the judge passed sentence on the former senior nursing assistant.
“You were in a position of trust, employed to take care of some of the most vulnerable people in this society,” he told her.
The judge said the families of people in care had the right to expect that their loved ones would be treated with respect and dignity.
Instead, he said Corvan had committed a serious breach of trust and had degraded and humiliated people unable to defend themselves.
The court heard that she had taken photographs and videos of the victims and sent them to work colleagues, making fun of them.
She was suspended from her job when those colleagues reported her behaviour.
The judge said it was clear from victim impact statements that the families of the victims had been deeply distressed and felt that they been betrayed by the health care system.
He imposed a sentence of two-year probation order and 100 hours of community service.
‘Gross violation of basic human rights’
The families of Corvan’s victims said in a statement: “Our relatives were private, kind individuals who could not speak for themselves in their final years, and what was done to them was a gross violation of their basic human rights.
“While no sentence can undo the harm, we are grateful for the acknowledgement that this type of behaviour is indeed criminal conduct and that justice can be served against those who mock and torment the vulnerable.
“Every caregiver must be held to the highest standard of trust.”
They said Corvan “sought entertainment in humiliating those who were being tormented every day through the slow and cruel loss of their ability to do even the most basic personal tasks”.
“At a point when our loved ones depended on her to support them in making it through their final days, she not only chose to mock and degrade them but then distributed it through social media.
“She took advantage of the fact that our family members were suffering from a disease that meant they could not even communicate what they had endured.
“We now live every day with the thoughts that our loved ones had no way of saying or showing how much of the fear or the pain that she caused lingered with them until their final days.
“We are saddened by the seemingly lack of morals in this social media generation and hope that this sentencing today makes people stop and think about their conduct online and how they treat people,” they said.
The PSNI said in a statement that all of Corvan’s victims “lacked the capacity to consent to any photographs that were taken”.
“Corvan had been trusted by both her employer and the family of those concerned to not only care for them but to treat them with dignity and respect,” it said.
The PSNI said it is using this sentencing as an “example for people in positions of trust working with vulnerable people to be deterred from ever taking advantage of someone in their care in this way”.