25 January 2024 , 15:51
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A factory cleaner accused of spiking the office coffee with Viagra has been cleared more than five years after she was first accused.
Karen Beale, 62, had claimed during her three-day trial at Canterbury Crown Court that she had been "set up" and suggested that one senior staff member found her "irritating", and that the camera footage which allegedly implicated her had been tampered with. The former Dover resident told the jury she simply checked one Nescafe Blend 37 coffee jar "under instruction" from the general manager and maintained she had never added any substance to it.
Ms Beale, who worked as a holistic therapist before becoming a cleaner, was unanimously cleared after jury of seven men and five women, deliberations lasted just over three hours. She had denied two offences of attempting to administer a poison or other destructive or noxious thing with intent to injure, aggrieve or annoy between November 2017 and September 2018.
The mum of three thanked the jury as she was released from the dock and a young woman, believed to be her daughter, sobbed in the public gallery. Despite Ms Beale's arrest in September 2018, proceedings took three years to reach the crown court. After the verdicts had been returned, Judge Simon Taylor KC told jurors the delay had been due, in part, to Covid.
"This case was very old and delayed due to various events we have experienced including the worldwide panic, but it needed to be resolved and has been now thanks to your hard work and dedication," he said. At a pre-trial hearing in December last year, the same judge had remarked that the court "owed Ms Beale an apology" for such a lengthy wait.
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The trial heard she had been employed at fire protection product manufacturer Envirograf in Dover for seven years when she was secretly filmed allegedly fiddling with the jar of instant granules in September 2018. The covert camera had been placed in the spine of a lever arch file after the firm's accountant Katrina Gravenor began to notice a strange taste, blue and white specks, and a slurry in her drink. "Not what you would expect to be in Nescafe," said prosecutor Matthew Hodgetts at the start of Beale's trial. The court heard Ms Gravenor, who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, had started to feel ill and stopped drinking her coffee when she noticed the "specks".
She was cleared by the jury (KMG / SWNS)She then installed the motion-activated camera, switching it on when she left her office at night and turning it off once back at work in the morning. Filming started around mid-August 2018 and when she checked the footage a few weeks later she saw Ms Beale, employed to clean at night, handling her coffee jar.
Ms Gravenor, who had been appointed as accountant when Ms Beale's husband James worked for the firm in credit control, then took the memory card to a friend, asking him to copy the clips, and handed it in to police. Giving evidence, she said the footage was "genuine", had not been tampered with and was not "part of a plan" to incriminate her colleague. She added she had not discussed the issue with general manager Paul Ackerman-Mond and there had been no disagreements between herself and Ms Beale.
In the 13-minute-long footage, with the first clip dated September 10 2018, Ms Beale could be seen wearing blue latex gloves as she picked up the jar, occasionally shook it, and took off the lid to decant some of the contents before placing it back onto a shelf. One clip also showed her using her sleeve pulled over her bare hand in what the prosecution alleged was an attempt to avoid leaving fingerprints behind. Police were alerted and it was discovered that the jar, as well as one in the office belonging to company secretary Jean Smith, contained a number of abnormal 'ingredients'.
These included Sildenafil - an erectile dysfunction treatment sold under the Viagra brand name - as well as a medication for high cholesterol. But although none of the chemicals were toxic or would have "necessarily caused problems", explained the prosecutor, it was said the full-time cleaner had "hoped and intended it would have some effect".
Ms Beale, who lived in The Street in Eythorne, Dover, but now has an address in Winsley in Westbury, Shropshire, had previously worked as therapist based in Faversham and then her home. In a character reference provided to the court, a former client described her as someone with "integrity and compassion" who would "help people not harm". Following Ms Beale's arrest she was sacked from her job for gross misconduct, a decision she appealed. Police also searched her home but did not find any substances which could have been used to contaminate the coffee.