Nurse who sexually abused residents 'should be named'

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A former nurse found guilty of sexually abusing residents at former Christchurch institution Templeton should be named to protect the public, the Nursing Council says.

The Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal last July found the man guilty of sexually abusing residents at the facility for people with intellectual disabilities while he worked there as a nurse in the early 1990s.

A former colleague reported the offending after learning the man planned to return to nursing in 2008. The abuse against two patients happened in March 1990 and March 1992, when the nurse worked mostly in the family room with children 12 years or older who had intellectual disabilities.

The charge nurse for that section of the hospital told the tribunal of incidents involving two of the patients.

In the first, a young female resident walked into the section greatly distressed, with grass in her hair and clothes. An incident form was completed and the police called but the severity of the girl's disability meant she could not tell anyone what had happened to her.

The second incident occurred on a night shift where a male resident was found in his bed covered with wet grass with his incontinence product off. The lawns had been mowed that day.

Police were made aware of the sexual abuse accusation against the man when his counsellor told them he had confessed his crimes in return for entering a programme for sexual predators. The counsellor allowed him to join as long as he quit working for the hospital immediately.

The man admitted to police officer Brian Reeves, who worked in the child abuse unit in 1992, that he had abused a resident but it was not investigated further because no complaint was laid, making a successful prosecution unlikely.

The man told the tribunal hearing he was "so low at that time I was either going to kill myself or someone else" and that he heard voices. He claimed he was suffering from a psychotic episode when he offended.

"The demons in my head were so loud and so persuasive I could no longer fight them. I did not have the energy, I just gave in."

The tribunal found the man guilty and he was struck off. The Nursing Council now wants him named, saying if his name stayed suppressed he could potentially end up working in another capacity in an IHC home or a school and it would not be able to say anything. He would not have to tell them he had been struck off but could instead say he had decided not to nurse any longer.

Nursing Council counsel Matthew McClelland said in the High Court at Wellington today the overall objective of naming an offender was to protect the health and safety of the public.

The seriousness of the offending meant the public interest in naming him was "that much greater", Mr McClelland said.

The man had not presented a psychiatrist's report during the tribunal hearing, instead relying on a letter from his GP of 30 years to outline his mental state now and at the time of the offending and which expressed concern over what the man might do if he was named.

But Mr McClelland said the doctor had not commented on what mental illness the man might be suffering from, nor whether he was getting psychiatric help.

"The tribunal requires much, much more by way of medical evidence to satisfy itself that there is a risk to the practitioner," he said.

"There just isn't sufficient basis for suppression to be granted."

Defence counsel Andrew McKenzie said the man had been found guilty in a civil case but that the offence of sexual abuse carried criminal connotations and, therefore, a greater stigma.

"This is the (abuse) of crippled children," he said.

"There is something in the stigma of a criminal label to a civil standard."

Openness and transparency had already been achieved through the hearing, the guilty verdict and him subsequently being struck off; keeping his name suppressed would not alter that.

The "winds of openness" had blown through the tribunal hearing and the public was now aware of what had happened, Mr McKenzie said.

The very nature of the offending made the case even more distressing than it would be if the man had been struck off for taking drugs of manhandling patients, he said - something Justice Simon France agreed with.

"I couldn't agree more that there's greater stigma," he said.

Justice France reserved his decision.