Carer sentenced for having sex with 'vulnerable' client Published duration 20 August 2019

image caption Kevin Woolston was given a three-year community order at Ipswich Crown Court

A carer with learning difficulties who had sex with a "vulnerable" client should not have been working in the care industry, a court heard.

Kevin Woolston admitted a sexual act with a person with a mental disorder by a care worker.

His learning difficulties meant he had previously been mistaken for a client of the care company he worked for.

The 33-year-old, of Thorpe Way in Cambridge, was given a three-year community order at Ipswich Crown Court.

Sentencing him, Judge Rupert Overbury questioned how Woolston, who worked for Ipswich company Green Rose Care, had been employed to look after vulnerable people when he had such obvious problems himself.

Pre-sentence reports deemed Woolston to have an IQ of just 71, learning disabilities and "substantial personal issues".

After two days' training Woolston had been allowed to supervise vulnerable clients and a former colleague had described him as "quiet, quite slow and sometimes mistaken for a client", the court heard.

'Accident waiting to happen'

The offence happened while he was working as the overnight carer for a vulnerable woman on 11 October 2016.

Woolston told police the sex had been consensual.

Judge Overbury said everything "screamed out to anybody he must have problems and as such shouldn't be left alone [with vulnerable people]".

"You never should have been allowed to be in the position you found yourself in," he told Woolston.

His employment was also described as an "accident waiting to happen" by the judge.

Green Rose Care offered no explanation and no-one had taken responsibility for what happened, the court heard.

Woolston was ordered to complete 120 hours of a rehabilitation activity requirement.

He was also given a restraining order against his victim to last until further notice.