Care home worker sexually assaulted five female colleagues

A woman who sexually assaulted five female colleagues at a care home is facing jail.

Samantha Lee’s treatment of one fellow worker at the institution in Stirlingshire was described as “traumatic”.

The victim said Lee, 31, had approached her at the nurse’s station and grabbed her head with both hands and pulled it into her chest.

The woman told Falkirk Sheriff Court: “She pulled my head into her cleavage and shook her breasts.”

Prosecutor Simona Gersheva asked: “Did you want her to do that?”

The woman replied: “No. I was shocked, really stunned by it.”

Lee made inappropriate comments about the woman’s partner and also slapped her bottom in the care home’s dining room in front of residents.

“I haven’t forgotten the way she made me feel,” she said.

Management launched an investigation and four other victims came forward. Lee resigned her post as a carer at the home – which cares for adults aged 18 to 65 – and the police were called in.

One colleague felt “violated” after Lee hit her breasts and bottom.

Another woman said she had worked with Lee for over a year and found herself on the receiving end of her behaviour “quite a few times”.

She said: “We’d be sitting having a laugh and she’d get up and touch my breasts.

“She did it to quite a few people. She’d catch you unawares. She’d get up, do it, and walk away. I didn’t find it funny.”

A nurse at the home said Lee had twisted her nipples “multiple times”.

After a two-day summary trial which ended on Tuesday, Lee, of Grangemouth, was found guilty of seven charges of sexual assault against five female staff members.

The offences occurred between January 1 and July 17, 2024.

Lee denied the offences and told the court she was “happy and bubbly” and had “never hurt anybody”.

Sheriff Neil Kinnear said: “Your position is that this is all made up. That would mean me accepting that not one, not three, but five colleagues of yours all deliberately made up lies about you to get you into trouble.

“I found all five to be credible and reliable.

“I have no reason to disbelieve them.”

He said the effect of Lee’s behaviour on the woman whose initial complaint triggered the investigation had been “traumatic”.

He deferred sentencing until March 24 for a background report and a restriction of liberty order assessment – to check Lee’s suitability for an electronic tag as an alternative to jail.

She was released on bail meantime and placed on the sex offenders’ register.

Lee turned in the dock and shouted “scumbags” at care home staff on the public benches when the verdict was announced.