A homosexual Kenyan immigrant has been jailed for just 24 months for sexually abusing an elderly Perth man whose condition then deteriorated and who has since died.
James Ng’Ang’A Irungu, 27, who moved to Australia from Kenya to study in 2023 and was employed as an aged care worker, pleaded guilty to three counts of indecently dealing with an incapable person and was sentenced in the Western Australia District Court on Thursday.
Irungu’s vile offending was caught on CCTV cameras installed by his 83-year-old victim’s daughter, with footage from March this year showing him force the vulnerable dementia and Parkinson’s sufferer to touch his genitals.
The court heard the victim suffered “tremendous shame” as a result of Irungu’s offending and his health had declined afterwards. He died last month.
Irungu’s lawyer told the court his client was a “secret homosexual” who had “repressed his sexuality” and now had a “deep feeling of shame”, ABC News reported.
Judge Alan Sefton said Irungu had betrayed the trust of family members and that his offending had “real potential” to undermine confidence in staff at the aged care facility where the abuse took place.
He made Irungu eligible for parole but told him he was likely to have his visa cancelled and be deported.
The sentence comes weeks after a Nepalese immigrant was jailed for raping an intellectually disabled woman in his care while working for the Department of Human Services in Adelaide.
Father-of-one Arjun Kandel, 45, who was allowed to move to Australia in 2009 before becoming a qualified disability care worker and getting citizenship in 2017, was sentenced to 12 years’ jail with a seven-year non-parole period in the South Australian District Court last month.
