Bilikesu Olagunju, a care worker in the United Kingdom, has been given a suspended prison sentence after harrowing CCTV footage revealed she repeatedly abused an elderly man in her care, just days before he died.
According to the Daily Mail Olagunju, who had recently begun working for Unique Personnel UK, was assigned to care for John Attard, an 88-year-old great-grandfather living in Bexley, Kent. On Christmas Eve in 2022, Olagunju was captured on hidden cameras shouting at Attard, dragging him across the floor, and threatening to beat him.
The footage, installed by Attard’s son Chris after growing concerns about his father’s wellbeing, also showed the care worker berating the frail pensioner to stand up while she struggled to dress him. At one point, Attard, who suffered from dementia and diabetes, could be heard pleading, “you’re hurting me.”
Footage captured during the 45-minute visit shows the ordeal from which great-grandfather John Attard never recovered, according to his family
Shocking scenes further showed Olagunju deliberately pulling the pensioner’s table away, leaving him unable to reach his breakfast, before spilling hot coffee on him. She was also seen squeezing a plastic marmalade sachet into his coffee while continuing to threaten him.
Chris Attard made the grim discovery on Christmas morning when he found his father unresponsive in bed with blood dripping down his face. Although a post-mortem examination could not directly link the abuse to Attard’s death days later, his son told Woolwich Crown Court that he believed the traumatic ordeal hastened his father’s decline.
“My father was kind-hearted, generous, compassionate and funny,” Chris said. “He was still enjoying what life he had left. Watching those clips back was heartbreaking and has had a profound impact on me and my family.”
Olagunju, who admitted one count of ill-treating or wilfully neglecting an individual while acting as a care worker, was sentenced to six weeks in prison, suspended for 18 months. She was also ordered to complete 50 hours of unpaid community service.
In her ruling, Judge Charlotte Welsh described the abuse as “a complete failure to treat Mr Attard with the dignity and respect he deserved,” but acknowledged that Olagunju had shown genuine remorse and had no prior convictions. The judge also expressed concern over the lack of training Olagunju received for such a demanding role, questioning why an inexperienced carer was given responsibility for an elderly man with dementia as her very first assignment.
“Being a carer is an incredibly challenging job, and sadly, people don’t fully appreciate that until they find themselves needing one,” Judge Welsh said.
Despite the guilty plea, Chris condemned the sentence as “an insult,” arguing that the punishment did not reflect the severity of the harm inflicted on his father.
John Attard is survived by his five children, 11 grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren — a family now left grieving a loss that, for them, was made immeasurably harder by the betrayal of trust in his final days.
