By Titilope Adako
A Nigerian care worker, Bilikesu Olagunju, was caught on CCTV violently abusing an 88-year-old dementia patient in the UK, just days before his death.
The footage, revealed in a report by DailyMail, shows Olagunju dragging and threatening the pensioner, John Attard, during a 45-minute visit on December 24, 2022. The abuse occurred on her sixth day on the job.
The camera, installed by the victim’s son, Chris Attard, captured Olagunju treating the elderly man roughly, threatening to “flog” him, and ignoring his pleas of pain. By the next morning, John Attard was found unconscious in bed, bleeding from the head. He was hospitalised but never regained consciousness and died 10 days later.
Olagunju, 42, who was hired through Unique Personnel UK, pleaded guilty to a charge of ill-treatment or wilful neglect. At Woolwich Crown Court, she was sentenced to six weeks in prison, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to complete 50 hours of unpaid work.
Prosecutor James Benson described her actions as “degrading and aggressive,” adding that she ignored specific instructions to leave the patient and call an ambulance when he collapsed.
At one point in the footage, Olagunju is heard saying, “Maybe I’ll beat you up. I’ll flog you. I’ll take you to the GP to get injections.” The distressed patient kept responding, “You are hurting me.”
Chris Attard, who found his father on Christmas morning, said in court, “Three days after he was admitted, I wrote a statement hoping he might recover. Now I know he never did.”
Although the cause of death wasn’t definitively linked to the abuse, Attard believes the trauma significantly accelerated his father’s decline.
Judge Charlotte Welsh said Olagunju failed to treat the patient with dignity, even though there was no evidence of malicious intent. She criticised the agency’s decision to assign an inexperienced carer to a vulnerable client, calling it “incomprehensible.”
Olagunju’s lawyer, Tijani, said she felt deep remorse and had endured mental anguish since the incident, noting it was her first role since arriving in the UK.
Outside court, Chris Attard called for accountability from Unique Personnel UK. “This company should have been in the dock too. Where were the checks? Where was the training? She never should have been sent to care for anyone, let alone someone as vulnerable as my father,” he said.
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