Jailed care worker Dawn Heaney's sentence cut on appeal

Dawn Heaney Heaney was sentenced to nine months in jail in August 2011
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A Leicestershire care home worker who was jailed for nine months for abusing two patients has had her sentence cut.

Dawn Heaney, 38, from Main Street, Loughborough, was convicted in August of two counts of ill treatment of dementia patients.

She put vinegar in a man's tea and slapped a 95-year-old woman at Wymeswold Court near Loughborough.

The Court of Appeal in London cut her jail term by three months because she did not cause "any distress or injury".

The decision means she will have to serve three more months before she is released on licence.

Mrs Justice Thirlwall said being sent to prison at all would have had a major effect on Heaney.

The senior care worker had been in the industry for more than 20 years when she abused the two elderly residents in 2009.

"We acknowledge that neither of the victims in fact sustained any distress or injury and they were very short incidents," said the judge.

"She is a woman in early middle age. The effect of a prison sentence on someone like her should not be underestimated."

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