The Court of Protection has sent a man to jail for impersonating an elderly dementia-sufferer (referred to in court as KJ) in order to obtain financial benefit.
The convicted man, Shaun Hill, had previously been ordered not to contact KJ or come within 100m of his home because of fears that he was exploiting KJ, believed to be his father.
Hill and another man had a history of obstructing the local authority and other care professionals in accessing and assessing KJ, and the injunction also sought to prevent this.
Following service of the injunction, two witnesses gave evidence that they had seen Hill at the property.
The judge accepted this evidence, but found that it could not be proved that drug paraphernalia found in one of the bedrooms had been put there by Hill after the date of the injunction.
It could also not be proved beyond reasonable doubt that Hill had asked KJ for money.
However, the judge did accept that Hill had impersonated KJ in order to obtain a BT landline and broadband services at KJ’s expense.
A tape of the call to BT was played to the court, where a man sounding like Hill can be heard ordering the services. The landline was installed at KJ’s property and was then used 11 times in 9 days to call Hill’s girlfriend, which the judge found to be proof “well beyond the point of reasonable doubt.”
The court referred to Hill’s “repeated and serious breaches” of the injunction and noted that “Shaun Hill, in addition, has been evasive when it comes to service of orders on him. He has declined to attend or file any evidence in response to that filed by the applicant. There is no evidence before the court upon which the court can be satisfied that he intends to comply with the injunction order in the future.”
The judge jailed him for 4 months, with no suspension.
How difficult is it to gather compelling evidence of abuse of the vulnerable? What could be done to make abuse easier to prove
