AN aged care nurse working in a dementia wing at a Hunter facility subjected six elderly residents to a series of disgusting and brutal assaults, punching them in the stomach, twisting their genitals and nipples and farting in their faces.
Phoebe Schwager was working as an assistant in nursing at Uniting Garden Suburb when she repeatedly assaulted and abused a number of elderly patients and two staff members between October 2024 and February 2025.
Prosecutors said the 22-year-old assaulted the six elderly residents with the intention to inflict pain or humiliate and degrade them, and had provided no explanation or shown any insight into her offending.
"The degree of violence is not the primary factor in terms of the objective seriousness," Crown prosecutor Emily Winborne told Judge Roy Ellis on Thursday.
"It is the breach of trust, the vulnerability of these victims who cannot care for themselves, cannot speak out, cannot escape the violence, who are helpless and defenceless."
Ms Winborne pushed for Schwager to be sentenced to full-time imprisonment, arguing the offences were aggravated by "gratuitous cruelty" and the 22-year-old had made self-serving comments to a psychologist about loving the residents and having a "soft spot" for elderly people with a disability.
Judge Ellis described Schwager as someone who was completely ill-equipped to deal with the challenging job of aged care nursing and said when she couldn't cope, she began using violence to "fight back, completely inappropriately" against difficult patients.
He said the victims were vulnerable and the assaults occurred in their homes, where they were entitled to be treated with care and consideration, and Schwager had abused the trust placed in her as a nurse.
Judge Ellis sentenced Schwager to a two-year jail term, but said any time behind bars would be "substantially adverse" to her mental health.
He found the community would be better protected in the long term if Schwager served the sentence in the community under an intensive corrections order and adjourned the matter until next month to have her assessed for home detention and community service work.
Barbara Berry, the identical twin sister of an 81-year-old victim with Alzheimer's, said she was dumbfounded to hear the extent of the allegations.
"What she has done is atrocious," Ms Berry said.
"She's an adult, she knows what she's doing, she knows right from wrong.
"These are people that can't help themselves, can't react, can't do anything."
Ms Berry said her sister loved to dance and they had good times growing up together. She has watched as her twin's health deteriorated.
"This should not happen to anybody," she said.
"But to be as bad as she is and to do that to her and the other patients, it's so wrong. It just won't be tolerated by anyone."
Ms Berry said elderly people deserved to be looked after and she hoped the case brought awareness.
"She would not have been in that hospital if she didn't have to be. I don't want to have to go into care ... nobody wants to go into aged care," she said.
According to an agreed statement of facts, Schwager repeatedly assaulted a 75-year-old man who suffered from Alzheimer's disease and post-traumatic stress disorder, grabbing, twisting and squeezing his testicles and penis when changing his incontinence pad, causing him to "shriek in pain".
She also repeatedly punched him in the stomach and said: "I hate this man, I just can't take this man".
"Oh that was a bit too hard I hope he doesn't have a bruise because I have my engagement ring on," Schwager said after punching the elderly man on one occasion.
Schwager also assaulted an 81-year-old resident suffering from Alzheimer's disease and other conditions, twisting the woman's nipple and then giggling as she screeched in pain.
She also repeatedly assaulted an 82-year-old patient who suffered from Alzheimer's, dementia and urinary incontinence and had a history of "lashing out at staff".
Schwager farted in the woman's face and laughed, jumped on the bed and pinned her arm down with her knee and said "shut up" and put a cleaning wipe in her mouth.
She also assaulted an 89-year-old woman who needed changing, telling her "you f---ing mole, roll over to me" and grabbed her by the forearm, tearing her skin and causing her to scream out in pain.
Another woman, 93, had a cognitive impairment and staff were warned to minimise strong language to avoid escalating her agitation.
But one day when she was doing her rounds, Schwager grabbed the woman by the legs, flung her onto the bed, threw the covers over her head and turned out the light.
"She does my head in," Schwager told another staff member.
Another elderly resident, also 82, was being changed after spilling something on herself when Schwager put her buttocks up to the woman's face and farted.
Schwager would often laugh when she was assaulting the elderly residents and when other staff members spoke up, she would tell them "you're no fun" or "you didn't see anything, did you?"
Schwager also admitted to assaulting two fellow staff members at Uniting Garden Suburb, smacking one woman on the vagina on the outside of her clothes and kneeing another in the lower back while she was bending over.
Ms Winborne had submitted these assaults were "part of a power play" to get other staff to fall in line and not report her assaulting the residents.
Details of the aged care attacks can be revealed after Schwager pleaded guilty earlier this year to a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and a number of common assaults after prosecutors dropped more serious charges of aggravated sexual touching.
The guilty pleas came during the Newcastle District Court's super callover, when negotiations are encouraged to reduce the backlog of criminal trials.
