By Kristy McDonald
A SUPREME Court trial has heard that a disabled Taylors Lakes man died as a result of poisoning, after one of his paid carers left him in the care of another to coach a football match.
Prosecutor Carmel Barbagallo told the court he heard defendants, Joanne Pace and Kevin Conduit, were charged with the care of the victim, Kevin Chuter, 67 and four other disabled men on the day of Mr Chuter’s death.
It is alleged that in addition to neglecting their duty to provide full and competent care for Mr Chuter and his companions, the defendants compounded their crime by failing to seek medical attention, which may have saved his life.
Ms Barbagallo told the court that Conduit coached a women’s football team on Sundays and that for a period on those days, he would “completely absent himself from his paid duties as a carer to the men … and leave the responsibility to some other carer to take on his duties.”
“There were also occasions over the 2004/2005 football seasons where Ken Conduit would bring the five men along to watch the matches as he coached them,” Ms Barbagallo said.
“The accused woman, Joanne Pace, would also attend the games to care solely for the five men whilst Conduit coached the women’s football team.”
Ms Barbagallo said Mr Chuter was a man who not only had no verbal communication skills, but also had some of his own ‘particular and peculiar’ habits, of which the defendants were well aware.
“Those particular peccadillos, amongst them included a preoccupation for food and drink,” she said.
“When he was given something to drink he would guzzle it until there was nothing left.
“I want to emphasise this, Kevin Chuter’s particular obsessions, particularly his obsessions for drink and his drinking habits, were well known to his carers and well known to the accused.”
