A woman convicted of stealing money from a vulnerable service user has been removed from the Social Care Register by an independent committee of the General Social Care Council (GSCC).

Martha Wright, 33 and from Manchester, was employed as a social worker for Trafford Council in their health and disability team when the allegations came to light. Over a period of nine months, Wright stole a total sum of £4,747 from Ms A, an adult user of services who had a mental incapacity. Wright was convicted in Manchester Crown Court on 22 November 2007 of nine counts of obtaining a money transfer by deception and was given a suspended sentence and 240 hours community service.

The GSCC Committee said Wright had significantly abused her position of trust and had caused direct harm to a particularly vulnerable service user who was left with virtually nothing in her bank account.

They said Wright’s behaviour was fundamentally incompatible with continuing to be a registered social worker, and that dishonesty associated with professional practice is so damaging to a person’s suitability to be a social worker and to public confidence in social care services that removal was the only appropriate sanction. She had breached the Code of Practice for Social Care Workers that all social workers sign up to when registering with the GSCC.

Rosie Varley, Chair of the GSCC, said: “In order to maintain public confidence in social workers, they are expected to act with integrity, abiding by the law and the GSCC code of practice. It is of the up most importance that vulnerable people are protected, and we therefore take matters of law breaking by social workers extremely seriously. Thankfully the majority of the 80,000 registered social workers find no difficulty in complying with this, but we will not hesitate to apply the appropriate sanctions if needs be.”

Wright was removed from the register with immediate effect. She has the right of appeal to the independent First-tier Tribunal (Care Standards).