Hospital doctor 'grabbed female nurse by the throat' and asked 'when are you going to give me your number?'

The doctor who worked at Stepping Hill Hospital claimed his behaviour was just 'banter'

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A doctor who grabbed an NHS nurse by the throat and sexually harassed other hospital staff has been suspended.

Dr Mubashsher Muhammed, who worked at Stepping Hill Hospital’s A&E, was hauled before a tribunal after being referred by the UK’s medical regulator, the General Medical Council, which reprimanded him for his ‘deplorable sexual harassment’ of two colleagues.

The doctor claimed it was just ‘banter’, and that he is a ‘tactile individual’ who wanted to ‘fit in’. Both nurses say he treated their requests for him to stop as jokes.

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The incidents took place in April 2021. In one instance, the doctor told a fellow staff member - referred to as Nurse A by the medical practitioners tribunal - to ‘pull your mask down so I can see your face’. The use of this phrase was denied by the doctor.

He also repeatedly touched the face covering of a second colleague, according to evidence given to the tribunal. He inappropriately ‘massaged her shoulders’, ‘tickled her waist’ and pinched her’, claims the nurse.

Instead of listening to Nurse B asking him to stop, he laughed in response to her request to stop touching her’.

During one ‘frightening ordeal’, Dr Muhammed cornered Nurse A and ‘blocked’ her from getting to the female staff changing room. He ‘placed his hand on the front of her throat’, ‘tightened his grip around her neck’, ‘kept her backed up against the wall’, saying ‘when are you going to give in and give me your number?’, according to the report from the tribunal which reviewed the case, ending July 26, 2023.

Dr Muhammed ‘strongly denied in his witness statement and oral evidence that this incident occurred’. But the medical tribunal panel found it to be ‘proved’, and suspended the married Dr Muhammed for nine months because of his ‘sexually motivated’ behaviour.

The tribunal found: "Dr Muhammed’s behaviour towards both nurses amounts to sexual harassment. He created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating and offensive environment for them to work in.

"Dr Muhammed treated both nurses’ requests to stop as a joke, he did not stop and both nurses complained to the trust."

Nurse A described how she felt a sense of ‘dread’ seeing Dr Muhammed just before he grabbed her by the throat. Prior to that incident, she described Dr Muhammed’s behaviour towards her as ‘relentless’, and that she was feeling ‘extremely uncomfortable and found [herself] walking around the department the long way around just to avoid him’.

In a written statement, she said: “As I opened the door [to get to the female changing rooms] Dr Muhammed was there, he jumped and said a remark about him making me jump. As I continued towards the female changing room, he stood in front of me and placed his hand around my throat, my back was against the wall at this point. I recoiled, he did not, and with his hand still around my throat said, ‘when are you going to give in and give me your number?’”

The incident left her stunned and shaken, she said, and in fear that she would not be believed if she reported it. The nurse did not report the exchange for three months as she felt it would ‘cause her trouble’ professionally.

The tribunal found that the doctor’s behaviour during the throat-grabbing incident was ‘an opportunistic event, rather than premeditated’.

Nurse B described how the doctor laughed while she asked him to stop touching her, after she claims he ‘massaged her shoulders’ and ‘pinched her waist’. She added that asking how his wife would feel about his ‘flirting’ did not stop his behaviour.

In his defence, the doctor claimed Nurse B’s story had been fabricated after he ‘rebuffed’ her advances. But the tribunal determined this to be ‘unlikely’.

The doctor conceded that it may have been possible that he did squeeze her shoulders in a ‘friendly gesture’, but that he did so at the time with all colleagues, male and female. He stated that he was a ‘tactile person’ and that he ‘had not appreciated that this would be perceived to be inappropriate in the circumstances in which it was meant’.

The panel added: “Whilst not condoning the conduct of Dr Muhammed, the tribunal accepted his evidence that there was a culture of ‘banter’ and that he had joined in. The tribunal inferred his behaviour may well have arisen as Dr Muhammed had been emboldened by the ‘banter’ and the culture of the department between other doctors and nurses, who were much more long standing colleagues.

“He was new. He had, however, taken it much further by behaving the way that he did.” Both nurses acknowledged a culture of ‘banter’ in their evidence.

The General Medical Council, which brought the case against Dr Muhammed, said his behaviour amounted to ‘serious misconduct’ and argued for a temporary suspension from their register – effectively banning him from working as a doctor.

Representatives for Dr Muhammed said ‘this case was at the lower end of the scale of seriousness of sexual misconduct’ and that the doctor has since attended courses on ‘professional boundaries’.

The representative also ‘submitted that this was not a case that involved sexual misconduct towards patients. He submitted that this was not a case where there had been contact with breasts or below the waist or under clothing’, reads the tribunal report.

Some 53 testimonials were given from colleagues, many of them female, speaking positively about his character.

The report said that while his behaviour was serious, it only occurred over a two-month period. The tribunal also said that Dr Muhammed, while the case had been ongoing, had continued to work as a doctor for two years without any further incidents.

In a written statement to the tribunal, Dr Muhammed apologised for engaging ‘unwelcome interactions’, and that he had ‘misjudged the position’. He added that he recognised, with the benefit of hindsight, that his actions were wrong.

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Dr Muhammed had worked ‘infrequent shifts’ between April 2022 and April 2023 for Wigan, Wrightington, and Leigh (WWL) Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. A spokesperson for the trust said “WWL can confirm Dr Muhammed no longer works for the trust.”

A spokesperson for Stockport NHS Foundation Trust which runs Stepping Hill - where the doctor from February to April 2021, the time of the incidents - said: “We do not tolerate sexual harassment, and we take all allegations of such harassment extremely seriously. Dr Mohammed was employed by a locum agency and briefly worked on our hospital site.

“Following these allegations we made sure that the General Medical Council and the responsible officer at the locum agency were made aware. No further shifts were given to him at this hospital afterwards.”

Serving him with a nine-month suspension, the report slammed the doctor by saying: “This was conduct that any professional would know was wholly unacceptable. More than that, it could readily be described as deplorable…

“The incident outside the changing rooms was especially shocking. He caused Nurse A to be frightened.

“She was obviously vulnerable and feared the consequences of raising a complaint. He had seriously undermined the reputation of the medical profession as a whole.”

In a further statement issued by Medical Protection Society representatives, Dr Muhammed said: “I am disappointed with the tribunal's findings and will be taking time to reflect on the outcome and consider my options.”

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