Health worker 'slapped nurse's bottom two days running'

Peter Lines, a senior operating department practitioner with Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Trust, slapped the nurse, known only as SR, on the right buttock one day and the left the next, a conduct and competence committee of the Health Professions Council was told.

Mary Page, for the council, said Mr Lines, who was not present for the hearing in London, or represented, accepted a police caution for common assault in relation to the incidents. "He did not seek to deny the physical contact and accepted the police caution," she said.

Miss Page said that Mr Lines slapped SR's right buttock on December 17 2007. "He was called to the accident and emergency resuscitation room, where there was some delay before the patient arrived. He moved into another room and came across the complainant SR, who was standing with a colleague. He slapped her on the buttock, there's some dispute about whether there was any exchange between the parties before this took place."

Mr Lines said that pleasantries were exchanged, while a witness said he just came up behind her and slapped her. Mr Lines said it was a friendly gesture, Miss Page said. The following day, Mr Lines saw SR again, and she told him the slap had left a mark or bruising, Miss Page said.

"Peter Lines said that he wanted to have a look, to see whether the mark was made," she added. "Peter Lines says this request was meant to be jovial, and also his comment that he would even it up by slapping her on the other buttock."

A few minutes later SR was leaning over the admissions desk while booking in a patient, and Mr Lines slapped her left buttock, Miss Page said. SR walked off with tears in her eyes and Mr Lines walked off shaking his hand as if it had hurt him, she said.

Mr Lines had said it was friendly banter between them, and he had not taken SR's previous expression of disapproval seriously, Miss Page said. She added that one witness said that SR took paracetamol because the impact was still painful, and Mr Lines said that he knew he had gone too far. He was suspended that day, she said.

Miss Page said there had been some Facebook contact between the two before the incidents, but that was irrelevant to the hearing. "This unwanted physical contact in the place of work in full view of staff and other patients is conduct amounting to misconduct," she said.

Mr Lines disputes that he caused bruising, Miss Page said, adding that he has asked the committee to take into consideration his 21 years of service with the NHS.