Nursing home staff slapped and punched pensioners in their care because they wanted to get their work done as quickly as possible.

Zonke Nzimande, 35, and Wimon Hill, 29, treated elderly residents of Cornelia Lodge Nursing Home in Southsea, Hampshire, as if they were on a cattle farm, Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court was told.

Mqobile Mavuso, a carer at the home, said that in September, 2006, she saw Nzimande punch an 80-year-old man and slap three elderly women, one of whom was 93.

Another carer, Sandra Joseph, said that she witnessed Hill dragging a blind woman of 90 from her chair and “frog-marching” her to the toilet.

The court heard that the home had last year been the subject of a damning report by the Commission for Social Care Inspection, the care home watchdog.

Nzimande, of Winter Road, Southsea, was found guilty of seven charges of assault and Hill, of Wimbledon Park Road, Southsea, was found guilty of one charge of assault. The pair, who were also guilty of one joint charge, denied the offences.

District judge John Woollard said: “You treated patients as if they were inanimate parcels rather than human beings.” They will be sentenced on September 10.

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