Ex-care home manager jailed for killing elderly resident

A former care home manager was jailed for 10 years today for killing an elderly woman after stealing prescription drugs from her and other residents to feed her own addiction. Registered nurse Rachel Baker gave 97-year-old Lucy Cox a lethal dose of a strong painkiller at a time when she was living a life of "lies, forgery and deceit", Bristol crown court was told. Outside the court, a relative of another resident who was at Parkfields Residential Care Home in Butleigh, Somerset, when Baker was in charge called for an inquiry into how she had been able to commit her crimes. Concern has been expressed over the apparent ease with which Baker was able to steal drugs, and the inspection regime that missed serious failings. Sentencing her, Mr Justice John Royce said Baker was caught in the "vice-like grip of drugs" when she killed Mrs Cox. The judge said her dependency on prescription drugs had turned her from a caring nurse into a woman capable of a "gross and appalling" breach of trust. During her trial it emerged that Baker stole thousands of doses of drugs such as diamorphine and tramadol prescribed for residents and took them herself. But to explain why her residents needed large quantities of drugs used for palliative care, some of the elderly people in her care had to die, the prosecution claimed. It was also alleged in court that Baker, 44, may have got a "perverted" kick out of being in control of elderly people's lives. In the witness box she said she enjoyed feeling "needed" when she was around people close to death. Baker wept as the judge described Mrs Cox as frail but spirited. "She was frail, confused at times. On occasions she was in severe pain. She was clearly a spirited lady. She loved coming downstairs for a glass of sherry. She had a very loving, caring family who visited her on a daily basis. She may have been in the winter of her days but her long life should not have ended this way." The judge said relatives of people who lived at the home felt "great betrayal and bitterness" and worried "about whether their nearest and dearest did receive a proper level of care". He paid particular attention to the victim impact statement of Mrs Cox's son Christopher. "He points to the question of why. Why was it that you changed from a caring admirable, exemplary nurse to someone of a completely different character?" The judge said the answer lay in her addiction to drugs. "Many witnesses spoke of your mood swings and odd incidents," he told Baker. "You were, it is clear, trying to continue to run the home while in the vice-like grip of these drugs. "It is against that background that you lived a life of lies, forgery and deceit. You lied regularly to doctors, pharmacists, nurses and carers. They all trusted you." Richard Smith, Baker's barrister, said her inability to seek help for stress and her dependence on drugs caused the downward spiral. Before her addiction, she was simply a "good person", Smith said. "Everyone would have found it inconceivable that months and years later the same lady with such genuinely good qualities would have found herself being sentenced for manslaughter." After a 10-week trial earlier this year, Baker was found guilty of the manslaughter of Mrs Cox but not guilty of the killing of a second resident, Frances Hay, 85. As part of the investigation, Avon and Somerset police exhumed the bodies of three former residents at Parkfields. Though police could not prove that she had killed these three, officers close to the case remain suspicious that Baker may have been responsible for other deaths. Her crimes surfaced only after two whistle-blowers came forward. The case has raised questions about why inspectors failed to spot the "chaotic" way controlled drugs were dealt with at the home and the way they were prescribed in the first place. The police are in contact with a number of agencies to find out what lessons can be learned. After the hearing, Claire Forsey, the daughter of former resident Marion Alder, called for a public inquiry into care home standards. "The most important thing is that this never ever happens again, when you have one person running the nursing home who took the sort of control that Rachel took and conned nearly everyone around her. This must not happen again. "There must be certain procedures that need to change for prescribing drugs, checking patients more regularly and not just accepting a nurse's word for everything which is what seems to have gone on here."