Gran who refused to move elderly man from care home where she thought he was happy sent to prison
Teresa Kirk given six months despite judge saying she was acting out of ‘deeply held sincere beliefs’ to protect interests of the man
A GRAN of 71 who refused to move an elderly man from the care home she believed he was happy in has been jailed.
Teresa Kirk was sent to prison for six months for disobeying orders from social services to move the man from Portugal to the UK.
Details of the case at the secretive Court of Protection were only made public this week – nearly two months after her sentencing.
Mr Justice Newton jailed gran Teresa for contempt of court despite conceding she was acting out of ‘deeply held sincere beliefs’ to protect the interests of the man, who is suffering from dementia.
The pensioner – who lived in England for 50 years – was said to have a large circle of friends, and ‘a cat of whom he was exceptionally fond’, according to the judge.
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Ms Kirk is understood to be held in Bronzefield prison in Middlesex – whose previous inmates include serial killer Rose West.
She is the second woman known to have been jailed by the Court of Protection in a dispute over the choice of care home for an elderly individual.
In 2013 Wanda Maddocks was jailed after trying to get her 80-year-old father removed from a care home where she believed his life was in danger.
Grandmother of four Ms Kirk is expected to appeal – but the name of the elderly man or his relationship with her can still not be disclosed.
He was born on the Portuguese island of Madeira but had settled in Devon.
Teresa moved him into her home in Sussex when his health began to decline because of dementia in 2014.
And when social workers said he should live in a care home, she travelled with him to Portugal instead.
In June 2015 the court ordered that he should be returned to Britain but he went into a care home on the Algarve in September last year.
The managers of the Portuguese care home refused to allow the man - identified in court papers as MM -
to leave without the permission of Mrs Kirk following a second ruling.
Mr Justice Newton said he was left with ‘no alternative’ but to jail her when she failed to do as the court ordered.
He said: “I acknowledge that she has deeply held, sincere beliefs as to the best interests of MM and is genuinely concerned about his welfare.
“[But] I have reluctantly concluded that ... I am left with no alternative but to pass a sentence of imprisonment, however much I have made it perfectly clear that I do not wish to do so.’
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