Dr Julian Proctor, pictured, is accused of sending explicit messages to a junior colleague
A senior doctor who was struggling with a break-up pestered a junior colleague with 900 WhatsApp messages and urged her go to bed with him, a medical tribunal heard.
Dr Julian Proctor, 36, sent more than 100 explicit messages a day to the young woman in a ‘relentless pursuit’ over a week long period saying they should have a ‘secret love affair’ to ensure they had a ‘good rotation,’ it was said.
A hearing was told the woman, aged in her 20s and known as Dr B, continually told Proctor she had a boyfriend.
But he carried on making sexual advances towards her sending her videos or stills of himself taking a shower or posing in his underwear.
Some explicit images were sent by Proctor while both were in a staff meeting with colleagues at the Pilgrim Hospital in Boston, Lincolnshire, where he was a senior registrar.
A selection of messages read: ‘Hey sexy… have you looked at my video yet, (sic) naughty huh?
Another said: ‘I love squeezing your bum it’s a nice shape…. I still want to get you naked. You do like the idea.’
In other encounters Proctor allegedly tried to embrace the woman in a lift outside the Acute Medical Unit before slapping her bottom and then pretending to kiss her in a side room asking her: ‘How much do you fancy me?’
When she asked him to stop he said: ‘But I like you I can’t help it. ‘
He also attempted to squeeze the woman’s bottom and inner thigh as well as making grabs for her waist and shoulder, it was claimed.
At the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service the woman said: ‘I knew about his reputation before I met him – my friend and partner warned me so I know.
The registrar, left and right, who worked at a hospital in Lincolnshire, is accused of ‘relentlessly pursuing’ the woman and sending her photos of himself in the shower or his underwear
‘He wasn’t the only one to tell me my colleague who was in rotation before me told me too.
‘She said he was a bit sleazy and my partner said he had a thing with women in the hospital. But I thought at first what Dr Proctor said was a prank – it was to outrageous to be real.’
The Manchester hearing was told Proctor targeted the woman in April last year on the day she started her very first shift at the hospital.
Lawyer for the General Medical Council Peter Atherton said: ‘She said she had started a new rotation, and after work Dr Proctor invited her to have coffee with him.
‘He then suggested that she sleep with him and that they could have a secret love affair for four months to make sure they had a good rotation. He placed his hand over hers and refused to let go.
‘At a later date when she was in the Junior Doctors office, he pulled her close and made kissing and suggestive licking motions.
‘This type of behaviour happened more than once. The very first day she was working he sent her explicit text messages and images of himself. The texts speak for themselves.
‘On one occasion they were in an office and another member of staff left the room leaving them alone.
‘He bent over her as she was facing the computer screen and asked: “How much do you fancy me?”, she replied: “I don’t.”
A tribunal heard Dr Proctor also attempted to embrace the woman and tried to ‘squeeze her bottom and thigh’
‘He then said: “You’re lying” and placed his face lose to hers and pursed his lips as though trying to kiss her.
‘He later invited her to do a chest drain with him so she went with him to the lift to collect the lift drain equipment.
‘But when they were going to the lifts he kept pulling her by the waist and trying to hug her from the back and she pushed him away.
‘He asked if he could kiss her and she said no and they got in the lift. But when people got off at their respected floors, Dr Proctor attempted to embrace her and she pushed him away but he was forceful and refused to let go when she said stop.
‘When she left the lift he slapped her on the bottom. He did ask her what was wrong because he could see that she was upset. But when she told him she was upset because she didn’t want him to touch her, he replied: “But I like you I can’t help it.”‘
The woman later went to see her clinic supervisor and asked her for a private meeting.
Mr Atherton added: ‘She was told that he had lots of problems and lots of complaints.
‘She (the supervisor) cuddled the junior doctor and asked what had happened but asked her not to take the complaint higher because it would involve a lot of paperwork. She said she would talk to the registrar and tell him off.’
The woman later spoke to a more senior member of staff, reporting she had been ‘persistently sexually harassed.’
Mr Atherton added: ‘She told the meeting that Dr Proctor had told her about some restrictions he was on and she felt sorry for him. He was going through a break up and thought he needed a friend.
‘Dr Proctor was aware from the start of her placement that she had a boyfriend as she had told him.
The hearing was told the doctor, left and right, was going through a break-up and ‘was just looking for a friend’
‘When they were in the car together he would try to hold her hand and she pulled away. He would also pull her by the waist closer to him and she would ask him to stop.
‘On the third day of offering she refused, and walked home as she could tell where this was going.
‘A breakdown of the 800 to 900 messages that Dr Proctor sent to her show that he was intent and relentless in his pursuit of Dr B for sex.
‘Dr B was junior to Dr Proctor so he was in effect her boss as registrar. She attempted to have a good and humorous relationship with him making it clear that she didn’t want a sexual relationship with him.’
Proctor, of Henley-upon-Thames, admits sending sexually explicit messages but denies asking Dr B to engage in a sexual relationship saying it was ‘a consensual flirtatious relationship’.
He also faces unrelated misconduct charges over his care of two patients.
The hearing continues.