Carer Patricia Rosanna Tirimacco sentenced for assault on disabled teen

A woman who, after 13 years, betrayed her client by assaulting him says she will never see the inside of a criminal court again after a magistrate handed down her sentence.

A carer who destroyed 13 years of trust by striking her teenage client with a pillow and slapping him will serve home detention for her “shameful and shocking” crime.

Patricia Rosanna Tirimacco shook and wept in the dock on Friday as the Adelaide Magistrates Court ordered she serve her eight-month prison term under house arrest.

Magistrate Koula Kossiavelos told Tirimacco her punishment would serve as an example to others who offended “at the highest end of the scale of breach of trust” by hurting society’s most vulnerable.

“This incident is so shameful and has shocked the community... we do not have many of these incidents detected because people like your victim cannot speak for themselves,” she said.

“This was a vulnerable person, with cerebral palsy from birth, who could not speak for himself – nor can he tell us what he actually suffered due to your actions.

“If it was not for his family having CCTV in their home, nobody would be the wiser of this ever happening... a message needs to be sent to the community.”

Patricia Rosanna Tirimacco. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe.

Outside court, Tirimacco’s lawyer Jason Evitts said his client would “repay the faith” the courts had shown by sparing her a prison cell.

“She wishes to express to the family and the young man that she is very, very sorry and the community will not ever see her in a criminal court again,” he said.

“She is going to do best she can to do the right thing in the future.”

Tirimacco, 54, of Magill, pleaded guilty to one aggravated count of assault over the December 2020 incident at the victim’s home.

The non-verbal young man, whose identity is suppressed, has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair for mobility.

Footage of the incident shows Tirimacco hold a sofa cushion over his face for approximately four seconds as he tries to push it away.

She then hits him to the side of the head with the cushion and, after waving her hands in front of his face, slaps him with her right hand.

The footage was uncovered because the victim’s father checked his home’s CCTV on his mobile phone, and pressed record.

In September, the victim’s father told the court of the shock, sadness and disappointment caused by Tirimacco, who had been treated “like a family member”.

Tirimacco pleaded guilty to assaulting a person with a disability who was in her care. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe.

In sentencing on Thursday, Ms Kossiavelos said Tirimacco had cared for the 19-year-old man for 13 years of his life.

She said the man’s father had “quite insightfully” noted Tirimacco was unfit to be a carer – and that she agreed with his assessment.

“You were someone of impeccable background who has done something very, very wrong and the community is shocked,” she said.

“You yourself cannot understand your actions... you are deeply remorseful and truly sorry, but the actions you carried out cannot be erased.”