Paedophile Grindr doctor struck off medical register
A paedophile junior doctor who was caught by an undercover police officer attempting to groom an underage boy has been struck off the medical register.
Thomas Jenkins, 28, logged onto gay dating app Grindr and asked user Liam, who he thought was 13, for sex.
But it was the police officer and Jenkins, who lives in Manchester, was arrested at Wrexham Maelor Hospital.
He admitted inciting a boy of 13 to engage in sexual activity at Manchester Crown Court in April.
A judge ordered him to take part in a sex offenders' programme for three years and he was placed on the sex offenders register for five years.
A hearing of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service was told Jenkins, who qualified as a doctor at Cardiff University two years ago, started a conversation with Liam in March.
The following day he exchanged sexually explicit messages and pictures and asked to meet him in person for sex.
At the time Jenkins was living in Manchester but was working in his second year of a foundation course in psychiatry at Wrexham Maelor Hospital.
A lawyer representing the General Medical Council said the conviction was so serious there was no question that his fitness to practise was impaired.
The tribunal panel agreed Jenkins had brought the medical profession into disrepute and fellow doctors would find his actions deplorable.
Jenkins, whose evidence was deemed "open and honest", spoke of his passion for being a doctor and claimed the grooming was "out of character".
He asked to be suspended from the medical register and said he had taken "steps on the road of remediation".
But the tribunal panel agreed the conviction was so serious that "erasure from the medical register" was both necessary and proportionate to maintain public confidence.