An NHS mental health nurse has been banned from the profession after sleeping with a female patient. Anton Craig Clark was brought to a hearing with 13 misconduct charges, including having sex with a patient, prescribing them medication without clinical justification and dishonestly claiming he was their carer.
He was handed a strike-off order on December 16, banning him from the nursing profession and removing him from the register, preventing them from working as a registered professional. He worked in the East Treatment Team within the Croydon Mood and Personality Team at South London and Maudsley Hospital NHS Trust between June and November 2019.
The panel found he knew the patient before he encountered her at work and he admitted he “did cross that boundary going to look for her” after coming across her name during his shift in a police interview. He admitted to having sex with the patient after he had been dismissed from his nursing position, but the panel believed he “groomed [the patient] over a lengthy period of time and noted that she was a very vulnerable adult.”
On October 4, 2019, it was found Mr Clark attended an appointment with the patient without being required. He then visited them several times late at night without clinical justification – the panel found that this was “sexually motivated, to some degree”. These actions were deemed inappropriate of any nurse but particularly unprofessional when considering the patient was not in his care.
On November 1, 2019, a safeguarding alert was raised with the Trust with reference to Mr Clark’s relationship with the patient. The agency which he was employed through raised the issue with the Nursing and Midwifery Council and the police.
On 4 November 2019, Mr Clark handed in his notice with immediate effect. In August 2020, Service User A also made a complaint to the police about Mr Clark. The police investigation was subsequently closed with no further action.
Admitted to having sex with patient in his car
When the relationship was reported to the police, the patient’s mother said Mr Clark was ‘falling in love’ with the patient. The panel said that these advances were “sexually motivated” and found that he had had sex with this patient, which was also deemed inappropriate. A police note reported he admitted to them having sex “3 or 4 times and admitted one of these being in his car.”
Mr Clark also gave the patient a gift on November 4, 2019, and £50 on another occasion, deemed inappropriate by the panel. Correspondence between Mr Clark’s team manager, his employment agency and his case coordinator revealed admissions to the inappropriate gift giving, the panel heard. The messages showed he had been taking the patient out for meals, buying her clothes, taking her on a trip to see her mother in Leeds and on a trip to Southend to get ice cream.
Mr Clark was also found to have made it out to two people that he was the patient’s carer when he wasn’t and inappropriately contacted these people several times. Mr Clark also befriended staff who worked closely with the patient, which the panel considered to be a further form of manipulation and proof he knew he was not her nurse though portrayed himself as such.
The final charge was that Mr Clark controlled the medication of diazepam – also known as Valium – without clinical justification. He admitted doing so in the police interview, and the panel noted that Mr Clark had no clinical justification or medical qualification to hold or control this drug for Service User A.
For these actions, Mr Clark was handed a strike-off order and can never professionally practice nursing again. The panel found no mitigating factors in this case.
A spokesperson for South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust said: “The actions of Anton Craig Clark are horrendous and have no place within the NHS. As soon we were made aware of his actions, we served him notice with immediate effect and reported him to the police and the Nursing and Midwifery Council in line with our safeguarding policies.
“We also asked Westmeria recruitment agency, who were his employer, to conduct a full investigation and completed a safeguarding enquiry with support from Croydon Council. We strongly support the decision the NMC have made in issuing a striking-off order.”
Get the top stories from across London directly to your inbox. Sign up for MyLondon’s The 12 HERE to get the biggest stories every day