A Sydney woman who took a weekend trip leaving her chronically ill mother without adequate medication, food or sanitary products has been spared a jail term.
Renee Prendergast, 45, was found guilty at a judge-alone trial in May of failing to provide her elderly mother Julie with the necessities of life over June 11 to 13, 2021.
She was cleared at trial of charges that she financially defrauded Julie and her father Josef, who both suffered long-term health problems.
Prendergast, the live-in carer for her mother and father at their home in the suburb of Ruse, in Sydney's west, left the pair alone to take a weekend break with her four children.
Over the weekend, Julie had to be rushed from the "cluttered" home to Campbelltown hospital, suffering extremely high blood sugar levels that put her at a high likelihood of harm.
The elderly woman was subsequently moved to residential aged care.
Sentencing Prendergast on Friday, District Court Judge Warwick Hunt said the carer's "recklessness" stemmed from inadequacies at the home when she went away.
She failed when it came to her mother's medication, food, sanitary care, blood sugar testing and mobility support, the judge said.
Deficiencies in care, growing prior to the trip, could have been easily stopped had she hired some in-home help given her access to a "significant" amount of money, he said.
In convicting Prendergast and handing her a conditional release order to be of good behaviour for two years, the judge took into account that she had been under "significant carer's stress".
He also considered the limited duration of the offending, being no more than three days.
Another factor, he said, was media coverage of the case on the issue of elder abuse, which had made Prendergast's life more difficult.
She had no criminal record and the specific scenario of the offending meant it was unlikely she would reoffend, although she had shown little insight in her actions, the judge said.
Both the Crown and defence agreed that a custodial sentence was inappropriate in the circumstances, he said.
The court previously was told that Josef lived with dementia while Julie suffered from breast cancer and required regular blood sugar readings for her diabetes.
"These types of offences are always difficult, we're dealing with family members," Judge Hunt said.
