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She’s worked hard for the money so you better treat her right

Older people who have worked all their lives to build up savings, a nice home and who may be now dependant on friends and family for care are being preyed upon and it could be happening in your area – so do something about it, ‘Tell Someone’.

Financial abuse is reported to be the second most common type of elder abuse, after neglect.

A study by Action on Elder Abuse (AEA) – a charity that tackles the abuse of older people – found that women are more likely to be targeted than men with most victims aged over 80.

In one year alone AEA uncovered that in the UK over £7million had been coerced or stolen from persons 65+ and 47 houses had been sold without consent to the tune of over £34million.

Independent Convener of the adult protection committees in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Moray Albert Donald said: “The 'Tell Someone' campaign is important because of the knowledge that some older people are at risk of financial harm.

“The campaign is a key element in raising public awareness and we will seek to both reduce the risk to older people from financial harm and also increase the potential for these issues to be reported and investigated by the adult protection teams in the area.”

Take the story of Joan*, an older woman with Parkinson's disease who lives on her own.

She has agency carers who come in three times a day to assist her with getting up, making meals, and helping her get to bed.

Joan manages 'day-to-day' with this help although her daughter has noticed that she is getting more confused with her money and her memory is getting worse.

Joan's daughter, Lynne, contacted her local council’s adult protection unit as she was regularly finding that her mum had no money to pay for her day centre or shopping. This was despite Lynne getting Joan's pension out each week for her.

After enquiries were made, it transpired that Joan was being targeted in between her carer visits by some young people who would ask her for money to ‘help them out’.

Due to Joan's memory problems, she struggled to recall who she had given money to and when.

The police got involved at this point and managed to find one of these young people and warn them away from visiting Joan.

The local adult protection team put a protection plan in place that meant that Joan's agency carers varied their times of visiting, her money was kept in a safe in the house, and the wardens kept a closer eye on her bungalow.

Since the protection plan was put in place, there have been no further reports of money going missing.

Financial abuse often happens quietly, behind closed doors and it’s suspected that a great deal of it goes unreported as it may not be something that most people want to talk about.

Financial abuse is often inflicted by someone who is in a position of trust. Abuse happens within families. It is done by family friends, relatives, neighbours and carers.

Older people like Joan may not know what is happening as they may have a health problem or they may be frightened or ashamed.

The abuser certainly doesn’t want anyone talking about what they have been up to and may go to great lengths to cover their tracks.

It’s time to bring financial abuse into the open. It’s time to speak up for those who can’t speak up for themselves.

For more information on adult protection issues please ‘Tell Someone’ and contact the adult protection team within your local council:

Aberdeenshire, 01651 871246, adultprotectionnetwork@aberdeenshire.gov.uk,

Aberdeen City, (01224) 522055, AdultProtectionUnit@aberdeencity.gov.uk

Moray, 0300 1230897 (24 hrs), adultprotection@moray.gov.uk

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