The family of an elderly dementia patient who was assaulted and mocked in a video by a senior care worker in Fife has said justice is “not even close” to being done.
Liam Stark was this week sentenced to unpaid work for a horrifying attack on a woman in her 80s at the Benore Care Centre in Lochore.
The 22-year-old also filmed his victim in just her underpants and a T-shirt as he laughed and chanted “Donald, where’s your troosers.”
Now the woman’s son has spoken out to condemn the sentence.
He said Stark should be behind bars, but instead was given ample time to complete a community work order.
Speaking to The Courier following the court hearing, he said he felt “disappointed”.
‘It’s a hard one to swallow’
“To assault someone like that is unbelievable,” the son said.
“I feel he should have been jailed.”
He added: “A lot of the feeling on social media is that everyone cannot believe he got off with it.
“He says he does not work, so it’s no harm to him going to do unpaid work in the community.
“It’s different if you are working five days and having to do weekends, but it’s no deterrent at all. No punishment at all.
“It’s not justice for us, nothing like it, not even close.”
He continued: “It’s a hard one to swallow.
“His life has not changed in any way”.
The son said the care home informed his family on August 8 2022 to say there had been an incident in which their mum, who has advanced Vascular Dementia, had been assaulted.
“We thought it was maybe with a resident,” he said.
“The last thing we thought was it would be a senior carer.
“I was absolutely sick, like I had been hit by a train. It was just unbelievable”.
No remorse
The son, who reported the offences to police, said of Stark’s crimes: “It’s absolutely shocking. He is sick in the head.
“He is needing professional help.”
The family, he said, had been visiting his mother daily at her home before she went into care during the early days of the pandemic.
He said Stark’s crime against his mother, who is now in a wheelchair after having a fall, likely took their mental toll on her and caused a lot of anxiety and possible stress.
The “bairns daft” great-grandmother, 88, has always lived in the Benarty area.
Asked if there is anything Stark could do to redeem himself, he said: “Not with the way I feel just now anyway”.
Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court heard how Stark showed off his sick video to other staff, and told one: “It gets funnier.”
He also assaulted the same woman by repeatedly flicking her nipples with his finger over her t-shirt, causing her pain, and claimed to colleagues he was just “having a laugh”.
At sentencing this week, Sheriff Lugton told Stark it was a “disgusting offence” and that he had shown little insight and remorse.
Stark was ordered to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work, the maximum amount available to the court.
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