Elderly 'facing financial abuse'

8:35pm Saturday 6th September 2008

Hundreds of thousands of elderly people are having their homes, benefits and savings stolen by members of their own family, charities warned.

The scale of financial abuse could be increasing, with tens of millions of pounds thought to be taken each year, the charities said.

Kate Joplin of Help the Aged said: "It's an ongoing problem but we only ever see part of the picture. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of victims."

She added: "Sometimes the elderly are not in a position to know they are being abused because of reduced mental capacity. Sometimes they are just hugely embarrassed."

Financial abuse can include the simple theft of money and possessions. But it sometimes involves "more subtle" pressure from family members, who seek to withhold benefits or force elderly relatives into selling their homes.

Ms Joplin said care workers and professional staff needed to be trained to recognise the signals of financial abuse, which could include changes in behaviour and buying habits.

"It's a sad reality that many abusers are family members, maybe not just a son or daughter, but quite often someone in a position of trust," she said.

The problem often went unreported, with other relatives, friends and neighbours too embarrassed to "blow the whistle" if they suspected something was wrong.

Action on Elder Abuse said increasing numbers of people were contacting the charity's helpline to report financial abuse. Policy manager Daniel Blake told the BBC: "What we know is that this affects hundreds of thousands of older people. The amounts of money are in the tens of millions of pounds being taken, stolen or defrauded from older people.

"We're not saying this happens in every family, but this is a wide scale problem involving massive amounts of money that actually mean a lot to older people and has a severe impact on their quality of life."

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