A 58-year-old former cleaner at a Halifax care facility for seniors has been convicted of sexually assaulting a resident.

Joseph Elizee Comeau admitted to allowing the woman to perform oral sex on him in May 2015 at Northwood Manor. The woman suffers from dementia and could not legally consent to the sex act.

Joseph Elizee Comeau, a former worker at Northwood, has been convicted of sexually assaulting a patient. (Blair Rhodes/CBC)

At Nova Scotia Supreme Court in Halifax on Tuesday, Justice Patrick Duncan said Comeau, given his many years of employment at the facility, should have known that residents housed in the ninth floor suffered from mental impairments.

Duncan said Comeau made no effort to determine whether the woman was capable of consenting. Court was told that her dementia caused the woman to behave in an inappropriate, sexual manner.

Comeau will be sentenced in May. He's free on conditions in the meantime. He no longer works at Northwood.