Nurse who tried to send girl sexual messages struck off
PA MediaA Broadmoor mental health nurse will be struck off after being convicted of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child.
Aswani Dreepaul was arrested in February 2023 after sending sexual messages over social media to a person he believed to be a 13-year-old girl.
The girl was actually a member of an activist group acting as a decoy.
A nursing and midwifery council (NMC) fitness to practise committee issued an interim suspension order for 18 months on Wednesday.
It said: "Dreepaul's offences occurred outside his professional nursing practice and there was no evidence before it that patients had been harmed as a consequence of his offending."
A striking-off order cannot take effect until the end of a 28-day appeal period.
Dreepaul was convicted on 25 March last year at Reading Magistrates' Court.
'Risk of sexual harm'
He received a suspended prison sentence and was placed on the sex offenders' register for 10 years.
The panel considered that there was a "potential future risk of sexual harm to members of the public, in particular female children".
"His conduct was fundamentally incompatible with the standards and values expected of a registered nurse. He has brought the nursing profession into disrepute," it added.
In light of his court sentence and advice from his solicitor, Dreepaul emailed the NMC on 4 August, stating that he could not return to his nursing career.
He wrote: "With all my regret, I accepted the NMC's allegations, namely my criminal conviction, that my conduct amounts to misconduct and that my fitness to practise is currently impaired."
Following his release on bail, he was suspended from employment and later resigned from Broadmoor Hospital on 21 August.
The oldest of the UK's three high-security hospitals, Broadmoor psychiatric hospital in Berkshire has held some of the UK's most high-profile criminals.
They include Ronnie Kray and serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, also known as the Yorkshire Ripper, and Southport killer Axel Rudakubana, who was moved there in July.
