Physiotherapist struck off for massaging a female patient’s bare breasts

A physiotherapist who massaged a female patient’s bare breasts has been struck off.

Purnoor Bawa pretended he was treating the woman for injuries she suffered in a car crash when he touched her chest – and asked if getting her nipple pierced had hurt – at an appointment on October 8, 2016.

In another session ten days later he made the increasingly uncomfortable woman take off her bra and top – and massaged both her breasts.

The woman, who was referred to the practice by her insurance company, was booked for ten sessions but stopped after five following Bawa’s behaviour.

Bawa had moved to the UK from India for a Master’s degree in 2003, and had been running the private physiotherapy practice Riverview Therapies in Gravesend, Kent, since 2017, the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service heard.

Feeling that Bawa had ‘groomed her’, the patient referred the matter to Kent police but there was insufficient evidence to formally charge him.

Bawa denied all the allegations and told the police she was ‘not a normal patient’, but refused to elaborate. His fitness to practise was found to be impaired by reason of misconduct.

Bawa had been running the private physiotherapy practice Riverview Therapies in Gravesend, Kent, since 2017, the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service heard

The panel noted that Bawa did not seem to take the sexual assault accusation seriously, and had even attended a Kent police interview with his family waiting outside in the car.

Bawa moved to the UK from India for a Master’s degree in 2003

In the judgement the panel stated: ‘[The panel] considered that members of the public and members of the profession would be concerned to learn that a physiotherapist had been found to have engaged in serious and sexually motivated misconduct on two occasions.’

‘[Bawa] had used his position as a physiotherapist to perpetrate sexually motivated conduct on a patient on two occasions, having gained [the patient’s] trust over the preceding three treatment sessions.

‘His conduct was calculated and deliberate and he showed no insight into, or remorse for, the impact his behaviour had on Patient A, nor on his profession or the wider community.

‘The panel was unable to identify any mitigating factors which would enable it impose a lesser sanction upon the Registrant – any sanction other than striking the registrant from the register would undermine public and professional confidence in the regulator.’

Bawa was present and represented as his career was ended.