Mr Adebayo was a nurse who, whilst working at Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, received payment for shifts he had not worked. He was investigated for this and ultimately fired from the Trust. He was also interviewed under caution by the NHS Counter Fraud Authority and ultimately charged with offences under the Theft Act 1968.
In between being interviewed and charged, Mr Adebayo successful applied for a job at the Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust. When he applied for this role, and despite being asked for a full employment history, he did not declare his role at the Manchester Trust. Further, despite a contractual requirement to do so, he did not inform the Pennine Care Trust after he had been charged with the criminal offences in December 2020 but waited until the end of January 2021 to do so.
He appeared before Greater Manchester Magistrates Court in February 2021 where he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 8 weeks imprisonment suspended for 12 years. He was subsequently fired by the Pennine Care Trust and referred to the NMC.
The fitness to practise proceedings brought against him involved a series of dishonesty allegations relating to his failure to declare what had happened at the Manchester Trust and his criminal charges. Mr Adebayo accepted all the allegations and was struck off.
On appeal Mr Adebayo argued that the Panel was wrong to find him impaired on public interest grounds and in support of this set out that the fact that he was not sentenced to an immediate sentence of imprisonment.
In rejecting this submission the Court stated: “Similarly, in Low v General Osteopathic Council [2007] EWHC 2839 (Admin) at [20], Sullivan J reiterated that the seriousness of a criminal offence as measured by the sentence imposed by a Crown Court (and by analogy a Magistrates Court) is “not necessarily a reliable guide to its gravity in terms of maintaining public confidence in a particular profession”. As an example, he observed that “a relatively minor offence of financial dishonesty may well be considered to be of the utmost gravity by the Law Society when dealing with a solicitor who has care of his clients’ funds”.
Mr Adebayo also relied on the fact that by the time of the fitness to practice hearing he had repaid all the monies, and the period of the suspended sentence had come to an end. These submissions are commonly made in cases such as this. Hill J roundly rejected the submission that the Panel had erred in not according to sufficient weight to such considerations.
This case is in interesting reminder that repeated dishonesty and in particular financial dishonesty, will almost always result in a finding of impairment and removal from the register irrespective of clinical ability, the severity of the criminal sentence and the fact that monies had been paid back.
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