A CARE worker who has been convicted of ill treating five dementia sufferers at a Burtonwood care home has been warned he could face an immediate jail term.

Craig Dann, of Neville Street, Newton-le-Willows, had denied all allegations he faced - including grabbing an 82-year-old man by the throat - but a jury found him guilty of all six charges that he faced.

Dann, 36, was found guilty to five charges of ill treatment of a person lacking capacity and one charge of common assault.

The jury at Liverpool Crown Court heard that he had been employed as a care worker by The Old Vicarage residential home in Burtonwood which accommodates such residents in a wing called The Willows.

Robert Edwards, prosecuting, said: “The prosecution case is that it was a job the defendant was in and one which he should not have been. Working with those with dementia requires sympathy, tenderness and gentleness.”

Dann, who began working as a full time care worker at The Willows in September 2016, behaved “unsympathetically, aggressively and on occasions with violence,” he said.

In May last year a domestic assistant was walking behind him as he pushed a 79-year-old woman along in a wheelchair and heard her saying something about bins. Instead of a sympathetic response he said, ‘If you carry on I’ll put you in a body bag and put you in a f….ing bin’.” said Mr Edwards.

On other occasions he had been heard telling residents to ‘shut up’ or ‘…f.. off.’

Mr Edwards said that another employee saw Dann tell another woman, 77, who was at high risk of falling, to sit down in a raised voice “as if angry” and three times pushed her back into her seat with his hands firmly on her shoulders.

On another day when an elderly man refused to go into the dining room, Dann “grabbed him by the throat and pinned him against the door.” The man, who looked stunned and frightened, was pinned there for two or three seconds, he alleged. Realising that there were relatives of residents nearby he immediately released him.

On a later occasion he was heard shouting, as if annoyed, to the same man to ‘come on’ and was seen forcibly pushing him into the dining room. “The man seemed distressed as if he wanted to get away and wasn’t co-operating,” said Mr Edwards.

As a colleague watched Dann “used both hands on his back and using what looked like all his strength pushed him into the dining room”.

The two men began to scuffle and Dann dragged him into the room to the table before the colleague intervened.

Mr Edwards said that on July 24 last year a 79-year-old woman poured jug of juice over a dining room table and he walked over, “completely lost his temper and grabbed her by the arm and forcibly pulled her away from the table before putting his hands on her back and “effectively frog marching her out of the room, treating her as a naughty child telling her to go to her room”.

He said that Dann's fifth victim was a frail 76-year-old woman who used her hands to eat and would consequently get dirty.

She reached out as if to get his attention but Dann seemed to take exception, shouted at her and grabbed her by the wrist. He then held it down on the arm of the wooden chair for five to ten seconds.

She told him not to touch her and he span her chair around from the table and used a paper napkin to forcibly wipe her face. “He did that with force….Her skin began to stretch and her face began to squash,” he said.

The force he had used was sufficient to leave bruises, he added.

Reports about his behaviour were made to management who notified the police, said Mr Edwards.

When interviewed Dann “denied any of the behaviour alleged and said the evidence of colleagues were lies motivated to get him into trouble.”

Judge Brian Cummings, QC, ordered a pre-sentence report to be prepared.

He told Dann: “All sentencing options will be open and you must prepare yourself for all possibilities including an immediate prison sentence.”