Nigerian woman jailed for stealing £20,000 from UK care home

The convict, a 41-year-old care home worker, was found guilty of abusing her administrative position at the facility located in Bostall House in Abbey Wood, Old Bailey, in South East London.

The Old Bailey facility is home for mental health patients under the Mental Health Act and those without family support leave their finances in the care of administrators and carers.

Meanwhile, Akinyemi was caught having made dozens of unauthorised withdrawals from the bank accounts belonging to patients at the facility.

Investigations into her fraudulent activities had begun in November 2018 after £43,000 suddenly went missing from residents' bank accounts, including £32,000 from one victim.

“This was a repeated and planned course of conduct, and a very serious breach of trust of vulnerable people,” the presiding judge, Angela Rafferty KC said to Akinyemi in court before sentencing her to seven months in prison.

While Prosecutor Robert Levack said, “People who live at the home are all vulnerable, they have various conditions and are detained under the Mental Health Act or other legislation. It is a 24-hour care facility.

“They are not allowed to leave Bostall House without a member of staff or a family member. Some have their financial affairs looked after by the home.”

Akinyemi, who had denied the allegations until her first day of trial, later admitted to taking £19,650 over the course of eight months from three residents, adding that others at the home were also involved in the wrongdoing.

Her confession was a departure from her initial claim that other staff at the facility were trying to “pin the blame” on her.

She pleaded guilty to three charges of fraud by abuse of position, while the presiding judge rejected a plea for a suspended prison sentence, insisting that only an immediate time behind the bars would be appropriate.