A carer who punched an 81-year-old dementia patient in Wollongong, New South Wales, has been described by a judge as “poisonous and nasty”. Alicia Gawronski was on Thursday found guilty of the common assault and intimidation of Gladys Buchanan in her Thirroul home in August last year. During the hearing police released shocking, expletive-laden videos they had filmed outside the elderly woman’s home. “You’re a carry-on candy and full of shit,” Gawronski can be heard saying in the video. In the videos Ms Buchanan can be heard whimpering and moaning, along with the sound of slapping. Ms Buchanan’s neighbour, Stephen Leebold had called police concerned about the noise coming from inside the house. “There was no way you would talk to a human being like that unless you were trying to denigrate them,” Mr Leebold said. “And that is exactly what she was doing.” In court on Thursday, Gawronski said the slapping noise was the sound her hitting herself in an attempt to gain the elderly woman’s attention. “Me slapping myself to get her attention, when she goes into these episodes she is not there anymore, it is quite heartbreaking,” she said. “But I am trying to get her to come back.” Police said they also saw the offender hit the woman on the thigh as she sat on the floor, without her pants on, while having her nappy changed. Gawronski repeatedly denied ever assaulting Ms Buchanan, but she said she did have to touch her thighs when changing her, which she did “with a closed fist,” she said, “because I have acrylic nails and they are razor sharp.” She also defended some of the threats in the video, including: “If you keep behaving like this, you’ll be going to a nursing home, and I’m going to make sure it’s the worst one available.”
