An Adelaide aged care worker has been found guilty of assaulting an elderly woman with dementia at an eastern suburbs nursing home. Michael Andrew Mullen, 55, pleaded not guilty in the Adelaide Magistrates Court to one count of committing assault that caused harm against 72-year-old Elizabeth Hannaford. This morning, Magistrate Paul Foley found him guilty of the charge. “I am satisfied that as a carer in a nursing home the defendant was in a position of trust … and that he was aware she was in a position of particular vulnerability because of both physical and mental disability,” he said. “I am therefore satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that all the elements of the offence have been established.” During the trial, the court heard Mullen was employed as a carer at Lourdes Valley Nursing Home at Myrtle Bank in November 2015 when Ms Hannaford was found with bruising and swelling to her face. It heard he had been her carer on the overnight shift and struck Ms Hannaford in the face more than once “with some force” after becoming increasingly frustrated with her behaviour that night. The court heard Ms Hannaford was repeatedly pulling out cords in her room which would trigger an alarm to staff and require Mullen to attend her room. In a statement to police at the time, Meg Rogers, who shared a room with Ms Hannaford, said she heard Mullen yelling at her roommate that night telling her to “stop playing with those cords” or she would “bloody well break them”. Ms Rogers said when Ms Hannaford set the alarm off again Mullen returned to the room and yelled at Ms Hannaford that “if you don’t stop doing this and I have to come back again there will be bloody consequences”. When the alarm went off for a third time, Mrs Rogers said Mullen stormed into the room, closed the dividing curtain halfway across and yelled “I told you to leave the bloody cords alone, you’re disobedient, you don’t listen, look at what you have done, get to bloody sleep”. Ms Rogers said she could hear thumping and thudding sounds coming from Ms Hannaford’s bed as well as “screaming and squealing” and the word “no” said several times. The court heard that in a police interview Mullen admitted to raising his voice on the night and described her behaviour as “frustrating and annoying”. “I probably raised my voice a little bit which, it’s not unusual, you know a lot of us do that because you, you, we probably shouldn’t with Libby, but she finds it very difficult to understand,” he said. “I probably did raise my voice to say to Libby ‘why are you doing it?’ [because] she was just doing it constantly and wouldn’t answer. When questioned about how Ms Hannaford sustained the injuries when he was the only one to attend to the alarms that night, Mullen said he could only hypothesise that she “rolled over and maybe hit herself on the bedside cabinet because it was pretty close”. The court heard Ms Hannaford told her doctor, who came to the nursing home to treat her injuries, that “someone came in and thumped me on the face” but that she did not remember anything after that. Ms Hannaford died in February 2016 from an unrelated cause. Outside court, Ms Hannaford’s daughter Joanna Warde said she was relieved Mullen had been found guilty. “It’s just such a relief that he got found guilty … I’m so glad,” she said. She said it was hard to think about how much her mother had suffered. “She was such a lovely, caring person and she did not deserve what he did to her,” she said. “What do you say about somebody who beats a vulnerable person, an old helpless lady, a beautiful mother, a beautiful grandmother? “I just hope that this never, ever happens to any person again.” Mullen was remanded on continuing bail and is expected to be sentenced in April.
