Telford home manager denies knowing why colleagues made mistreatment claims
A former care home manager accused of mistreating two of the residents has denied all the allegations against her.
Sacked manager Margaret Tongue told the jury that the allegations made by two colleagues at the Old School House Care Home, in Madeley, had been made up.
She and support worker Karen Jackson are on trial, jointly charged with an offence of ill treatment of a person lacking capacity.
Tongue is also accused of a second offence of ill treatment of a person lacking capacity.
Old School house Care Home is under new management with Eeze Care having taken over the running of the home in July 2020, some 13 months after the alleged incidents took place.
Giving evidence Tongue, 59, told Shrewsbury Crown Court that she had not "effectively" assisted Jackson, 49, in grabbing the jumper of a vulnerable man with learning disabilities, escorting him from the dining room and then using a "variety" of abusive language while telling him to "go to his room" on June 18, 2019.
She also denied shouting and swearing at another more able resident after he entered the kitchen by himself to use the toaster at the premises, in Church Street, the following day.
Tongue told the jury: "I said to him not to touch the toaster unless a member of staff was with him, as it might burn him."
Mr Simon Parry, defending Tongue, asked her: "When you asked [him] not to touch the toaster, did you swear?"
Tongue replied: "No, I did not."
She also denied pulling a chair from the same man resulting in him having to stand up and denied seeing him stumble over a bag as he fled from the room.
Allegations
She said the accounts given by former colleagues Kelly Payton and Kimberley Pound had been made up and she did not know the reason.
The jury previously heard that newly-appointed care and support worker Miss Payton had only been working at the home for a few weeks, but she was so concerned by what she had seen and heard that she reported the matter to a senior care home manager and to the police.
Miss Pound told the jury that she thought Tongue and Jackson perhaps had a bad day at work when the incidents occurred, but were otherwise good at their jobs.
Tongue, of Stebbings, of Sutton Hill, was dismissed from the care home following an investigation the following month.
Both she and Jackson, 49, of Arden Avenue, Dawley, deny the offences. The trial continues.
