THE nurse in charge of a Gwent care home on the night a dementia sufferer died insisted yesterday that there had been a care assistant with the man at all times.

Musediq Salisu, 47, told Newport crown court that a rota was in place to ensure that Alan Sayers, who required one-to-one care on a 24-hour basis, was not alone during the night.

Mr Sayers, 52, who suffered from frontal lobe dementia, was found dead in his room at the Mountleigh Care Home, Newbridge, at around 4am on September 27 2004.

It has been alleged that Mr Sayers died alone and he had been dead for several hours before his body was discovered, and last week the court was told that instructions regarding Mr Sayers' care were not always documented.

Salisu said that after mignight, when the shift of a care assistant assigned to look after Mr Sayers ended, night staff were to take turns in sitting with Mr Sayers, either inside his room or outside his door.

He told the court that on this night he had been able to see as he went about his other duties at the home, that there was someone with Mr Sayers at all time.

He had been in his office, he said, when care assistant Rosslyn Jenkins had come to tell him that Mr Sayers was not moving.

He said he had found Mr Sayers' body to be still warm, but could find no pulse or evidence of breathing and had called an ambulance, the police and a doctor.

Under cross-examination from prosecuting counsel Gerard Elias QC, Salisu said the four-strong care assistant team at night were given duties but he left them to sort out among themselves who did what.

Criticising a lack of records on who should have been caring for Mr Sayers and when, Mr Elias said record-keeping, particularly for one-to-one care, is not, according to the Nursing and Midwifery Council "an optional extra" and should have been Salisu's responsibility.

Mr Elias also told the court an assessment of Mr Sayers indicated he posed a considerable risk, either to himself or another resident, unless someone was with him all the time.

Home's staff and a doctor deny all charges

Mountleigh Care Home was located in New Bryngwyn Road, Newbridge, but has since reopened under new management, run by Southern Cross Care Homes and is now open under the name of Millview House and Lodge.

Mountleigh Care Home general manager Dawn Harris, 52, of Raglan Mews, Newport and care manager Enda Evans, 56, of Glyn Derw, Caerphilly, are jointly charged with wilfully neglecting Alan Sayers between December 18, 2002 and September 28, 2004.

Care assistants Rosslyn Jenkins, 54, of Alexandra Place, Newbridge, and Michael Lurvey, 54, of Greenfield, Newbridge, qualified nurse Musediq Salisu, 47, of Viscount Evan Drive, Newport, and agency care assistants Margaret Lewis, 60, of Prospect Place, Cwmbran, and Chengeta Kaziboni, 34, of Cowbridge Road West, Cardiff, are jointly charged with wilfully neglecting Alan Sayers between September 25 and September 28 2004.

GP Sushma Ohja, 55, of Hillside Park, Bargoed, is charged with making false representations on Mr Sayers’s death certificate and cremation certificate and also falsely obtaining £50.70 from Gwent Police by claiming she attended the home in her capacity as a police doctor.

Jenkins, Kaziboni, Lewis, Salisu and Lurvey were all on duty at the time of Mr Sayers’s death and Mr Elias said they wilfully neglected their duty to give one-to-one care to their patient. Harris was called to the hospital after Mr Sayers’s body was found, but Evans was on holiday at the time.