A care worker who took photos of dementia patients and put them on Snapchat has been sentenced at court.
Ciara Corvan, 28, committed the offences while working as a healthcare assistant at a specialist ward for dementia patients at the Bluestone Unit at Craigavon Area Hospital. She was handed a probation order and given 100 hours of community service.
Posts Corvan sent to co-workers on Snapchat include a picture of a female patient in the bath; a video of her shaking a patient’s hand while music played in the background with a caption claiming she was having a “rave”; and a picture of her and a patient with their noses almost touching with the caption “why the f*** is she so close to me?”.
Passing sentence at Craigavon Crown Court on Monday, Judge Patrick McGurgan said Corvan, from Cathedrals View in Armagh, had failed to treat patients in her care with the respect and dignity to which they were entitled.
Earlier this year Corvan plead guilty to a total of seven counts of ill treatment of patients under the Mental Health Order (NI) 1986.
The offences, which covered the period from the autumn of 2022 to the summer of 2023, involved four dementia patients being cared for on the ward. All four have since died.
Police said the case was the first prosecution of its kind in Northern Ireland.
Judge McGurgan told Corvan her crimes were committed while she was in a position of trust.
“You were employed to provide care for some of the most vulnerable members of our society,” he said.
“It is a hard enough decision, in my view, for a family to make to place a loved one in a care setting, particularly when that loved one is as vulnerable as the victims were in this case.
“The very least families can expect is that those who are entrusted to care for their loved ones are treated with respect and dignity.
“You, Ms Corvan, failed to do that.”
The judge praised the actions of the co-workers in the unit who had received the Snapchat messages and had reported Corvan’s actions to managers. Police were then alerted.
He said her offending involved the “degrading and humiliation of those who were completely helpless to defend themselves”.
During the hearing, Judge McGurgan summarised victim impact statements provided to the court by relatives of the patients involved.
He then sentenced Corvan to a two-year probation order and 100 hours of community service.
The judge warned Corvan, who now works for a grocery business, that if she breached the order she would be returned to court and would face the imposition of a custodial sentence.
A barrister for the defendant told the court she had written a letter of apology to the families.
The barrister said the letter said that Corvan was “truly sorry” and acknowledged that she could not expect to be forgiven but did express hope that the families could see the “sincerity of her regret”.
The barrister added: “I just wish to be quite clear that Ms Corvan is not in any way trying to minimise her actions, and has the deepest regret for the pain and suffering that both the victims in this case and their families and extended families and loved ones have suffered as a result of her actions.”
After the sentencing hearing, the families affected said in a statement: “Our relatives were private, kind individuals who could not speak for themselves in their final years, and what was done to them was a gross violation of their basic human rights.
“While no sentence can undo the harm, we are grateful for the acknowledgement that this type of behaviour is indeed criminal conduct and that justice can be served against those who mock and torment the vulnerable.
“Every caregiver must be held to the highest standard of trust.”
The families said Corvan “sought entertainment in humiliating” patients who were already “tormented every day through the slow and cruel loss of their ability to do even the most basic personal tasks”.
“At a point when our loved ones depended on her to support them in making it through their final days, she not only chose to mock and degrade them but then distributed it through social media,” they said.
“She took advantage of the fact that our family members were suffering from a disease that meant they could not even communicate what they had endured.
“We now live every day with the thoughts that our loved ones had no way of saying or showing how much of the fear or the pain that she caused lingered with them until their final days.
“We are saddened by the seemingly lack of morals in this social media generation and hope that this sentencing today makes people stop and think about their conduct online and how they treat people.
“It has been shown today that this is criminal behaviour. If you are in a position of trust and care and not taking that position seriously, heed this warning. Please stop and think – if that was your mother or father, how would you want them to be treated?”
Detective Chief Inspector Claire McDonald from the Police Service of Northern Ireland said the victims in the case were “some of the most vulnerable in our society”.
“They and their families depended on former health care assistant Ciara Corvan to take care of them and they trusted that she maintained their health and their dignity as part of her care role – she did not,” she said.
“The victims were subjected to degrading and mocking behaviour. Corvan took photographs and video recorded her victims on her mobile phone and then shared the imaging with degrading comments via a social media messaging app.
“Corvan exploited their vulnerabilities, specifically their lack of capacity and communication, for her own entertainment. Today her actions are proven criminal, in the first case of its kind for Northern Ireland.”
