A FORMER Lancashire nursing home matron wept as she was refused permission to be allowed back into the profession.

Jeanette Wright, 44, pleaded to be permitted back into the profession after being struck off for a "systematic fraud" where she pocketed the wages of a non-existent nurse.

She said she was ashamed at what she had done while she was in charge of the Anderson Court Nursing Home in Accrington.

Mrs Wright told the professional conduct committee of the UK Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting: "I can only apologise and persuade you that this will not happen again."

The restoration hearing had earlier been told by the council's officer Sonja Wolfskehl that mother-of-three Mrs Wright had been guilty of "systematic fraud over a period of four or five years."

She had "invented" a nurse called 'E Clayton' and paid her wages - to herself - for up to five years.

Mrs Wright had claimed that she had earned the money because she was doing the work of two people at the under-staffed home.

Mrs Wright appeared at Burnley Crown Court in January, 1997, on five counts of obtaining property by deception and was sentenced to two years imprisonment.

Announcing the decision to refuse the application for restoration, committee chairman and council president Alison Norman advised Mrs Wright to consult the Nurses Welfare Service before making any future application for restoration.

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