A 33-year-old woman has pleaded guilty to nine counts related to a fake-nurse crime spree that was as disturbing as it was bold.
Hailey Roberts did not attend court in person, but entered nine guilty pleas by video from her lawyer’s office, located not far from the Barrie courthouse.
Clad in a black V-neck sweater, black-rimmed glasses and with jet black hair, her appearance was in stark contrast to two brightly coloured paintings visible on the white wall behind her in the video frame.
In an agreed statement of facts between her lawyer, Mitch Eisen, and Crown attorney Sarah Sullivan, court heard shocking details of how Roberts passed herself off as a nurse to gain employment at care facilities for elderly residents around Simcoe County.
Court heard that Roberts earned $118,149 in total compensation in her various jobs she attained by presenting fraudulent qualifications.
One facility in Midland employed her for 11 months and promoted her to manager, while other jobs lasted just a few shifts.
One such agency in Barrie immediately grew suspicious of Roberts and contacted police.
That interaction, made in 2023 by ParaMed Home Health Care, started the investigation that eventually led to a slew of charges against Roberts.
Although the time elapsed in each case varied, employers all grew suspicious when Roberts was asked to present formal qualifications, usually in the form of a yearly licensing check that's common in the medical profession, as well as fields such as education.
That would spell the end of employment for Roberts, prompting her to move on to another care home, or agency that supplied nurses to them.
The most serious aspect of Roberts’s duplicity was administering of medications to elderly, vulnerable patients. Court heard that she gave anti-psychotic medication to one patient while working as the lone “nurse,” with support staff under her watch.
Sullivan also told court of flu shots and insulin injections being administered by Roberts.
Patients ranged in age from early 60s, to at least one centenarian born in 1922.
Sullivan told court of how Roberts often portrayed herself as “Robertson,” apparently because she had become aware of a legitimate nurse of that name who had been licensed by the Ontario College of Nurses.
Asked to explain the discrepancy, Roberts told her employers that she added two letters to her surname to escape the clutches of an abusive ex-boyfriend, court heard.
Like her qualifications, no such abuser existed, nor did she ever attend the three different post-secondary institutions from which she claimed to have attained her certification.
Though broad and far reaching, Sullivan told court that no patients suffered lasting harm or injury under Roberts’s watch.
Six of the counts were for fraud or impersonation, two others were assaults related to administering needles to patients. A ninth charge related to Roberts being found to have provided a friend’s name to a Barrie police officer while being ticketed and fined in 2021.
Court also heard that it led to Roberts’s friend losing her driver’s licence for unpaid fines and having to attend court to unravel a legal mess not of her making to get her good name back.
No reason was given for Roberts making her plea by video, or why she was unable to attend in person.
Since March 31, court guidelines now dictate that guilty pleas in the Ontario Court of Justice, especially for serious criminal offences, are to be done in person.
The next court date for Roberts is set for Aug. 12 in Collingwood, where the court will take stock of a pre-sentence report.
It is expected that she will be sentenced later in the fall.
Though both the Crown and defence settled on the agreed-upon facts in the case presented Wednesday, Eisen told the court that they have not yet reached an agreement on sentencing.
