Opinion: Adult nappies and a wetsuit - how could this happen?

A judge said a couple's treatment of the man's elderly man was "akin to torture". Photo / 123rf

OPINION

I've been appalled over the past few weeks by a case in the Christchurch District Court of a local couple accused of neglecting the man's elderly father, who has advanced dementia.

"Neglect" is a bit of an understatement. The 90-year-old was locked in a dark room for up to 16 hours a day, with no way to go to the toilet - he had to use a plastic bag or a plastic urinal, or just to go to the toilet in his bed or on the floor.

He had no access to light, fresh air or water. The light switch in his room was taped off, the window securely closed, and a sheet fastened outside the house to stop any daylight getting in even if the curtains were open.

At night, these offenders dressed him in an adult nappy and a wet suit that he couldn't take off, for whenever he soiled himself.

And after he'd been in hospital with pneumonia, they didn't even bother getting him the antibiotics that had been prescribed for him.

And to add insult to injury, the son helped himself to more than $200,000 of his father's
money.

As I've followed the case against these two, I've thought to myself time and time again "you absolute criminals" - and so I was relieved/delighted when these two abusers were finally found guilty late last week.

Guilty of keeping the elderly man in unhealthy conditions. Guilty of failing to provide the
necessities of life. On top of that, the guy was found guilty of theft, guilty of fraud and guilty of assaulting his father after he'd soiled himself.

Two absolutely appalling individuals whose behaviour and treatment of this 90-year-old man was described in court by the judge as being "akin to torture". Akin to torture.

At one point during the trial, some CCTV footage from inside the man's room was shown.

He was trying to clean himself up and was knocking loudly on his door asking for help. His son eventually turned up, saw the soiled sheets on the bed and yelled at his father to take his top off.

Here's what he said: "Why do this? This is behaviour that's going to put you in a mental
hospital, this is where this is going, I'm not going to put up with this any more. None of us are, we're sick of it."

He went on: "By god, I'm going to smack you one in the head if you don't listen to me." And he went on to call his father "a filthy animal" and assaulted him while he was taking his top off.

As I've followed this case, I've been thinking about how something like this could happen.

Not why these two people behaved the way they did, but how it was able to happen.

And It's had me wondering whether, more broadly, we are letting-down our older people in this country.

At one point while this trial was happening, it was World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. And a key message the people behind it wanted to get out there was "if you see something, say something".

And that's a thing about this abuse case that I haven't been able to get my head around.
Surely, it couldn't have gone unnoticed. Or could it?

Are we all really that busy, so busy, too busy, to keep an eye out for this sort of thing? This poor fella being abused by his son and his son's partner, don't you think someone would've noticed that he wasn't out and about much?

Don't you think there might've been some tell-tale signs that could've been picked up when he was in hospital with pneumonia? Or was it just that his son and his partner were brilliant at making things look good? Nothing to see here.

Is it, perhaps, a fact that despite our population ageing, older people are becoming invisible?

Which is strange really because, unless something happens to us, we all get old. At one
point when I was a kid, I wanted to be a commercial pilot. That's never going to happen, but I am going to get old (God willing).

You might already be old. You might not be there yet. But it's going to happen.

And that's why cases like the one I've just talked about really fire me up. Because I know
that one day, I could be a 90-year-old needing people around me to help with day-to-day life.

I bet the chap who was abused so terribly by his son and his son's partner never imagined how his life would end up. Effectively held prisoner by his own son - who, when he was a baby and a young child, would have looked to his father for everything.

But stuff like this happens and, whenever it does, I think we all need to take a good hard look at ourselves and ask whether we - as a country - are letting our older people down.

I saw an article recently which said it's getting harder and harder being an older person in New Zealand - which is ridiculous. It should be getting easier and easier because, like I said before, we all get there.

So why aren't we doing more for our older people?