'Cruel' carer jailed for abuse yelled 'I hope you die' at 81-year-old victim

Louise Harris pleaded guilty to ill-treatment and criminal damage

A "heartless and cruel" carer who was caught on camera abusing an 81-year-old woman with dementia has been jailed.

In footage shared online, carer Louise Harris could be seen screaming at Elizabeth Anne Shipton in her home in Pontardawe, Neath Port Talbot, and drunkenly shouting: "I hope you die in your sleep you... horrible cow."

As Elizabeth lay in bed, Harris knelt down and put her arm on her chest, demanding to know where her money was.

Elizabeth complained the arm was hurting her, but the carer yelled: "I don't care, where's your money?"

Harris, 42, was given a three-month sentence at Swansea Crown Court - but the victim's family believes it should have been a significantly longer sentence.

Elizabeth’s daughter, Tracy Faram Shipton, said her mother was "horrifically traumatised" and had filed an appeal, arguing the sentence handed to Harris last week was unduly lenient.

She had known Harris, a former neighbour, for many years and had trusted her with her mum's care.

"She'd been a carer since she was 18. I checked everything with her - she was trained on dementia, manual handling, incontinence. I'll never get my head around how she could do this," she said.

Tracy said Harris had known her mother had been in a fragile state, having recently been in Morriston hospital for seven weeks with sepsis. She was also grieving the death of her husband, who she had been with since the age of 16.

"My mother had come out of hospital in December, my dad's funeral was in January, and then this happened in February. Louise knew everything my mother was going through," she said.

Tracy said Harris was on her first trial shift, after the family had advertised on Facebook for someone to help while they had waited for a care package to be put in place by social services.

Tracy said Harris had been meant to stay for four hours in total.

"I was there for the first hour and Louise seemed amazing. Almost as soon as I left she turned," she said.

She said that, after she had left, Harris "got drunk and ripped up my mother's knitting".

"I'd explained to her that knitting was the only thing helping my mother through the grief, it was giving her something to live for... It was just cruel."

Harris found a bottle of vodka in the fridge and downed it. The court heard she was a recovering alcoholic who had "succumbed to temptation".

Harris's rage appeared to be sparked by Elizabeth accidentally pressing her emergency alarm, which triggered a phone call to a crisis response helpline.

Tracy said this had