A HOSPITAL nurse has been convicted of assaulting two elderly patients.
Lynette Freeth called dementia sufferer 80-year-old Barbara Beecroft a "silly old cow" and violently yanked her wrist, magistrates at Wakefield heard.
And she forcibly restrained elderly patient Roy Glover in a chair after he refused to take medicine at Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield.
Freeth, 30, who denied once telling a colleague she "hated old people", committed the assaults during a busy and chaotic night shift on ward three on January 13.
Freeth, of Dunbar Street, Wakefield, denied three assault charges.
She was convicted of two charges and cleared of one, relating to an allegation she slapped Barbara Beecroft.
Freeth claimed she acted in self-defence. She said she found Mrs Beecroft pressing buttons on another patient's drip and tried to usher her to her bed.
Freeth said: "She put her arm up to hit me. I felt she was going to hit me and I grabbed her wrist to stop her."
But a colleague saw Freeth yank the elderly lady to her bed and push her aggressively and forcefully to the bed.
Freeth told Mrs Beecroft: "If you hit me again that will be the last thing you do," before calling her a "silly old cow".
The court heard Mr Glover refused to take his pills and Freeth later injected him through his pyjama bottoms.
Adjourning sentence until next month, magistrate Sally Clamp told Freeth all sentencing options would be considered.
A Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust spokesman said they were unable to comment for legal reasons whether or not Freeth faced any disciplinary measures.
* Click here for latest Wakefield news.