Care assistant tried to use dying patient’s bank card to fund bets

Sean O’Neill, 32, of Cypress Park, Cloughmills, pleaded guilty to a charge of ‘fraud by abuse of position’.

Yesterday, he sat with his head bowed at Antrim Magistrates’ Court, currently being held in Ballymena.

O’Neill was given a six months prison sentence, suspended for three years.

He had admitted that on March 16, ‘whilst occupying a position in which you were expected to safeguard, or not to act against, the financial interests of’ a man, ‘dishonestly abused that position in that you obtained details of his bank card and attempted to remove money from it to the total of £450’.

A charge of stealing £190 from the man on the same date was withdrawn by prosecutors.

A prosecutor said on March 16 a female visited her father in the coronary care unit at Antrim Area Hospital and she checked his wallet which contained £190 in cash and a bank card.

The wallet was in his jacket which had been hung on a chair beside his bed.

The same day, the prosecutor said, a friend of the man noted the cash was removed from the wallet.

Messages from the patient’s bank were sent to the patient’s phone relating to “an attempted transaction of £200 to William Hill Online and asking for confirmation” by phone.

The prosecutor said the man’s family requested the bank “to stop the transaction”.

The patient passed away on March 19.

The court heard William Hill said the bank card had been used in an attempt to “fund an online betting account registered in the name of Sean O’Neill”.

O’Neill was arrested and admitted three attempted transactions to a total value of £450 but denied taking any cash.

A defence lawyer said O’Neill, who had a previously clear record, has sought help with Community Addictions.

The lawyer said it was a “very distasteful offence” and “there is no one that recognised that more than” the defendant who was “filled with remorse and shame”.

She said it had been an “aberration” as the defendant had worked six years at the hospital without incident.

She said he had been suspended from work in connection with the case and was likely to lose his job.

District Judge Nigel Broderick said what saved O’Neill from being jailed was no money having being taken; his clear record; he was seeing Community Addictions and he appeared to have expressed “genuine remorse”.