An A&E nurse at Chelmsford's Broomfield Hospital repeatedly groped a female colleague during a "sexually motivated" attack at work. A woman who worked as was working as a Health Care Assistant (HCA) at the hospital reflected on the terrifying incident as her colleague faced a misconduct hearing.
In what was deemed as "sexually motivated" by a panel, male nurse Sreeprasanth Thondiparampil Sabapathy was found to have groped the colleague's buttocks and breasts before forcing her to put her hand on his groin.
The incident saw Mr Sabapathy call over a female colleague to the hospital's blood/gas room while working during a night shift.
Panel members also heard from the senior nurse that the woman was "crying" and "could hardly speak" when reporting the incident to another health care assistant.
Expanding on the incident, the woman's statement continued: "Sree then placed both his hands on both my breasts again over my clothing.
However a substantive hearing was held on the July 9 to 12 of this year, where the NMC panel found six charges proved against Mr Sabapathy, including asking the colleague to come into the blood/gas room, placing his hand or hands on the victim's breast or breasts over their clothing and attempting to stop the woman leaving the room. The only charge which Mr Sabapathy was cleared of was placing his arm around the victim.
In the report of the hearing, the panel said that "misconduct was of a very serious nature, involving an abuse of position of trust and sexually motivated conduct towards a junior colleague."
An 18-month suspension order was given to allow the possibility for an appeal to be made but if there is no appeal lodged, Mr Sabapathy will be struck off.
