Nurse with indecent images of female patients struck off
An accident and emergency nurse who took indecent photographs of young female patients has been struck off.
Kuljeet Drubra, who was convicted last year of offences including possessing indecent images of children, took two sets of photos showing patients with various parts of their bodies exposed.
Police found the images at the nurse's home after arresting him in 2011.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council heard the photos were taken in 2003 when he worked in several Norfolk hospitals.
'No educational purpose'
Police found the photos on a disk at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital nurse's home after he was arrested on a separate matter.
Senior registered nurses who examined the pictures and gave evidence at the NMC hearing said said they were "shocked and distressed" by the images.
In the view of the nurses, the pictures had no "educational purpose" and did not demonstrate any particular clinical detail or condition, the NMC said.
"From the monitoring equipment visible in the background of the pictures, the staff members concluded that the pictures were probably taken in a high dependency unit of a hospital such as an accident and emergency, theatre recovery or intensive care unit," the disciplinary panel said.
Drubra had been arrested in October 2011 and convicted the following year at Ipswich Crown Court on charges of voyeurism, possessing 30 indecent images of children and possession of extreme pornography.
He was sentenced to a three-year community order, a sex offenders prevention order and was put on the sex offenders register for five years, according to the Crown Prosecution Service.
The nurse was sacked for gross misconduct in June 2012 after an investigation.
The NMC found Drubra to have been in possession of a number of "indecent and inappropriate" images of hospital patients between 2003 and October 2011.
In July a panel of the NMC conduct and competence committee hearing found his fitness to practise impaired both in relation to the criminal convictions and the possession of indecent images of hospital patients.
Striking him off the nursing register on Monday for both the criminal convictions and the indecent pictures, the committee hearing chairman Andrew Coleman said Drubra showed evidence of "harmful, deep-seated personality and attitudinal problems".
He said: "If Mr Drubra were to remain on the register, the public would not be protected."