ProNurse

By Jamie Grierson

A registered nurse “fed her addiction” to class-A drugs by stealing medication from elderly people in her care, including two she is accused of murdering, a court heard yesterday.

Rachel Baker, 44, started to abuse drugs stolen from residents at the care home she ran with her husband, Leigh Baker, in 2005, Bristol Crown Court was told. More than 5,000 units of medication prescribed to patients at Parkfields Care Home, in Butleigh, Somerset, were unaccounted for between late 2005 and mid-2006.

Baker, from Glastonbury, Somerset, would often procure prescriptions by exaggerating her patients’ symptoms. David Fisher, for the prosecution, said that by late 2006, Baker, who once managed the home, became addicted to diamorphine – similar to heroin – as well as pethidine and diazepam.

Mr Fisher said that “with that background”, the mother-of-one allegedly murdered Francis Hay, 85, in November 2006 and Lucy Cox, 97, in January 2007 Opening the case, he added: “She fed her addiction by taking drugs which had been prescribed, not to her but to residents at the home and from her husband.”

Jurors also heard that Fred Green, a resident of Parkfields who died on 6 January 2006, suffered a severe stroke and was being treated for painful skin cancer on his scalp. Toxicology tests taken during a post-mortem examination revealed that Mr Green had not been receiving the medication prescribed to him by his GP.

“On occasion [Baker] would steal drugs from residents, on other occasions she would get prescriptions for residents which they didn’t require, or did not require in such large volumes, by exaggerating or falsifying their symptoms so she could use the drugs herself,” Mr Fisher said.

He added that Baker began to suffer from migraines in 1999 and was prescribed painkillers. She would give a “variety of excuses” to explain why she needed more prescriptions, including claiming her daughter had scribbled on the paperwork. Doctors eventually withdrew her prescription but she repeatedly refused the alternative migraine medication was offered to her, and resorted to using residents’ drugs, Mr Fisher said. Between 25 July and 28 November 2006, her visits to the GP suddenly stopped.

Baker has accepted that she diverted drugs from eight residents, as well as her husband. She denies two counts of murder and the trial is expected to run until the end of March.

© 2010 Independent, The; London (UK). Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.

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