A CARE home assistant was caught in possession of a marked £10 note a short time after it was taken from the purse of an elderly resident.

Staff were individually asked to turn out their pockets in the presence of a senior carer after the note was discovered missing from the purse in the women's room at Shotley Park Residential Home, near Consett, County Durham, one evening in July.

Twenty-one-year-old Vincent Haggan, who had been asked to place a nebuliser in the room a short time earlier, produced a £20 note from his pocket.

Durham Crown Court was told that the senior carer told him the police were on their way, so he put his hand back in his pocket and produced the £10 marked note.

He initially tried to claim he found it on the floor and put it in his pocket for safe-keeping, intending to hand it over later.

But he said an emergency buzzer sounded so he responded and forgot about the note.

Peter Kilgour, prosecuting, said the marked note trap was set as money had been going missing from residents in the period prior to the incident.

Chris Morrison, mitigating, said Haggan was immediately dismissed from a job he had been in for the previous year.

He said Haggan's prospects of finding new employment would be hampered "by the stigma of the conviction".

Haggan, of Thornfield Road, The Grove, Consett, admitted a charge of theft.

Judge Richard Lowden told him: "I don't know how mean petty theft can be other than stealing from old ladies in residential homes, that's why it's so serious.

"Obviously, the suspicion is that it's been going on for a long time, but I sentence you on the basis of one occasion, involving £10, so I therefore won't send you to prison."

He ordered Haggan to carry out a 200-hour community punishment order over the next 12 months.

Haggan was also ordered to pay £200 costs.