What is ‘granny dumping’? The US phenomenon of abandoning relatives to avoid paying for their care The first person to be jailed in the UK for ‘granny dumping’ was sentenced on Tuesday

How could anyone be so heartless? That will be many people’s first thought on reading that an American man took his frail father, who was suffering from dementia, on a flight from Los Angeles to the UK, where the confused old man was left at a bus station in Hereford with no way for anyone to trace his family – all to avoid having to pay for his care.

The story of 78-year-old Roger Curry is a sad one, but it is an extreme case of an all-too common phenomenon in the US: “granny dumping”.

It’s estimated that about 100,000 elderly Americans are abandoned every year, by relatives who are unable or unwilling to help look after them or pay for their care.

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What happened to Roger Curry?

Mr Curry was taken from his home in 2015 by his son, Kevin. He conspired with Simon Hayes, a 53-year-old friend from Henlade, Somerset, who gave him to NHS medics claiming he had found him lying “face down” in a country lane, saying he could not give his name as he was “working with the SAS”.

Mr Curry’s son remains under investigation in the US for abuse, fraud and kidnapping. But Hayes was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison at Worcester Crown Court on Tuesday and labelled a “fantasist” after admitting to perverting the course of justice – becoming the first person in the UK to be jailed for granny dumping.

Where did the phrase ‘granny dumping’ come from?

The term has been used in the US since the 1980s. As long ago as 1992, the New York Times reported on the “millions of Americans who are near the breaking point with the burden of caring for their ill and elderly parents”, driving this sad trend of dementia sufferers who cannot identify themselves being left in public places. Back then, there were said to be 70,000 cases a year.

This also happens to hundreds of people every year in Japan, where it is called ubasute. To cope with this, some charities have even set up a “senior citizen postbox” in recent years, a service where poor families can leave elderly parents who are taken out of their hands and allocated an old people’s home.

Medics in Ireland have hit out at their country’s own form of granny dumping, complaining that people are leaving elderly relatives at hospitals when they need social care rather than health treatment. This is often at Christmas, when services are already overstretched.

Experts at Age UK and Parkinson’s UK told i they have no knowledge of dementia sufferers being abandoned here. But amid calls to improve state provision of social care here, these stories from abroad serve as a warning.