A WIDOW has issued a damning indictment of callous ‘carers’ who systematically looted her home while looking after her dying husband in Llanthony.

Farmer Ariane Morgan claims thousands of pounds worth of possessions were snatched from them by the agency workers in the last year - the final crime executed just five days before her husband Wyndham’s death from cancer in August at the age of 75.

Mrs Morgan, who has reported the catalogue of crimes to police and health chiefs, fears the despicable practice is more widespread than imagined.

She revealed how one friend, shocked by her revelations, became a victim himself when a female carer snatched rings from the fingers of his wife who suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease.

Mrs Morgan, who gave the name of the particular NHS agency group involved but did not want it printed, has aired her grievances to police and health chiefs.

In each case she felt she made little headway in voicing her concerns about the thefts which included tools, valuables and even clothing.

A spokeswoman for the Aneurin Bevan Health Board said on Monday, “Firstly, the Health Board would like to offer our sincere condolences to Mrs Morgan for the sad loss of her husband.

“The Health Board takes such allegations very seriously and is aware of the concerns expressed by Mrs Morgan. The staff providing care were from an agency and the Health Board has been liaising with the agency concerned.

“We are aware that Mrs Morgan’s concerns have also been referred to the police.”

She added, “The Health Board is working with all agencies to ensure their recruitment and selection processes meet its requirements and will continue to ensure that these are closely monitored, to make sure that patients and their families can have confidence in the services that are provided in their own homes.”

Abergavenny’s police commander Insp Huw Jones said Mrs Morgan’s complaint had been positively pursued after she contacted officers in June. The matter had been handed over to public protection officers.

He said: “We respond very quickly to such complaints. It is a big issue when people who are elderly and vulnerable are targeted in this way. Such offenders are lower than low.”

Only two months ago, he said, police arrested a woman carer after a tip-off from the victim who installed a camera in her Abergavenny home to catch the culprit. The suspect was detained within 24 hours.

Insp Jones conceded it was difficult to establish proof if there were so many carers coming and going at the same address - which Mrs Morgan said was the problem in her case.

She said her husband’s dishonest carers - employed by one of numerous agencies who operate in the Abergavenny area and based away from the town - were males.

“Some of them are genuinely caring and kind. They are helpful to both you and the person that you are looking after,” she told the Chronicle.

She said of her husband, “He got very upset when I told him that we were being robbed. I never told him how much they had taken. I couldn’t do that to him. Wyndham was known for his honesty and speaking his mind. He never could understand how anyone could steal from other people.”

Her motive for telling the story was to warn people about the dangers faced when they let people into the home who were not what they seemed.

“We were told of the benefits of having carers in our home. We did not expect criminals who deliberately become carers to steal from you as they did from us,” she said.

She had been ‘amazed’ at how many people she knew had suffered at the hands of unscrupulous people ‘masquerading as carers.’

“Dealing with stress, fatigue and the hardship of terminal illness, it is incredibly easy to be duped and to overlook underhand tricks,” she reflected.

She added, “While most of this was happening I was exceptionally depressed. I found it hard enough to keep my head above water - let alone be aware of what the carers were doing.”

Suspicions about one carer climaxed when she confronted him. She asked the agency to send someone else - and he stole from them too.

“If you have carers in your house when you go out you need the place to be like Fort Knox,” said Mrs Morgan who gave a long list of precautions to take to thwart the most tenacious of thieves. She advised people to lock away their possessions and restrict access to most rooms.

She was not able to catch the culprits red-handed with her goods - and could not establish proof without CCTV footage.

“Even though I said who these people were, they have been allowed to carry on working as carers,” she said.

“All I wanted was to be with my husband as I knew time wasn’t on his side. The stealing really got me down. I knew who they were. I got rid of one of them. I informed the care agency that he was stealing from us and all they said was to ask me what evidence I had.

“I explained that things went missing when one particular carer was here all day. Because I hadn’t caught him red handed, they just took him from our house and put him into someone else’s.”

She said that if she knew then what she knows now about security precautions she would have been ‘far less stressed and much better prepared.’

“I worry so much for the poor people who are in the position that we were in. I am also very concerned for the patients who have nobody to look after them except carers who enter their houses by a key they can use.

“If they have the thieves we had they won’t even have any wall paper left. One even took two pillows that my husband was using when he was bed-ridden.

“That’s how callous these thieves are. I feel that people should know that it could happen to them and that they should know what to do about it.”