Shocked St Albans woman condemns carers ‘gambling on duty’

A shocked St Albans woman has condemned two carers she claims were more focused on gambling than looking after their disabled charges.

At about midday on September 6 a woman who would prefer to stay anonymous looked out the window of her offices in Chequer Street to see two men in their 20s with two “severely disabled” wheelchair users outside William Hill bookmakers.

She was appalled to realise they were taking turns in the betting shop, leaving the disabled people outside.

After they had finished laying odds, the two men started to move their charges away - the source was astonished to see one of them start pushing the wheelchair and catching it, like a child with a shopping trolley.

She said: “It was quite disrespectful and it concerned me that someone is treating them like that and they are being paid to look after them.

“It wasn’t very nice and it didn’t look very caring for the people in the wheelchairs. I felt quite upset and I was angry, I couldn’t believe what I am seeing.

“They are obviously doing the job for the wrong reasons.”

She added: “I have a grandma who has people care for her and luckily she is functioning and talks and would tell us if someone was doing wrong, but these people looked like they were severely disabled, so I was thinking, ‘what if that was my brother or sister or mum?’, and you think, ‘who is their family? What would they think?’.”

As she has no details about who the carers work for or who the disabled people are, it is difficult to pursue a complaint.

One of the carers was tall, black, and wearing a bandana with all dark clothing. The other was white with a brown beard and wearing a white t-shirt.