Blackpool Victoria hospital staff charged with cruelty to patients and stealing drugs

The five - three nurses and two healthcare assistants - worked at 600-bed Blackpool Victoria and their appearance followed a four year police investigation.

They are charged with cruelty, perverting the course of justice by destroying evidence and one nurse faces an allegation of encouraging another nurse to sedate a patient with drugs.

All five were sent by Blackpool Magistrates for trial at Crown Court.

They are Catherine Hudson, 52, of Coriander Close, Blackpool. She faces five charges of being cruel to patients

She is further charged with conspiring with fellow nurse Charlotte Wilmot, 47, of Bowland Close, Blackpool, to mistreat another patient.

Hudson is charged with theft from the hospital of Omeprazole, a drug used to treat gastric reflux.

She faces a conspiracy allegation with Marek Grabianowski, 45, of Montpelier Avenue, Blackpool, of perverting the course of justice by trying to thwart a criminal investigation by disposing of evidence.

Hudson faces a second conspiracy offence involving the theft of sedative Zoplicone from the hospital with Victoria Holehouse and conspiracy to steal Mobeverine a relaxant drug with Grabianowski.

Two charges involve Hudson alleged involvement in a conspiracy to steal antibiotics Amoxillin Metronidazole – used to treat sexual infections - with Charlotte Wilmot and conspiracy to steal Trimethoprim - a bladder infection drug- with the same woman.

Nurse Matthew Pover, 39, of Beardwood Road, Smethwick, West Midlands, is charged with offering to supply Zoplicone and conspiracy to steal the same from the hospital stock .

Wilmot faces the charge of encouraging Hudson to drug a patient under the Serious Crime Act and the ill treatment of Janet Westhead and the three conspiracy to steal drugs charges.

Grabianowski faces a further offence of stealing the anti muscle cramping drug Mebeverine and Victoria Holehouse, 31, of Riverside Place, Hambleton, faces two charges of conspiring to steal Zoplicone.

All the offences are said to have taken place between 2014 and 2018. The accused were suspended from their work when the police inquiry started.

No pleas were entered on behalf of any of the five by their lawyers and they were bailed to appear at Preston Crown Court on June 29.