Doctor who romped with escort while on duty at hospital maternity ward can keep his job after ‘swapping prostitutes and porn for CYCLING’
He's now planning a new career as a family GP
A DOCTOR who romped with an escort while working on a maternity ward is to keep his job after claiming he’s swapped prostitutes and porn - for CYCLING.
Disgraced Dr Rupert Pemsel, 33, was branded “abhorrent” after he paid for sex with hooker Leanne Kennedy, 29, in an on-call room while still wearing his scrubs.
The married NHS medic - who met her in between helping with emergency caesareans - was exposed after the prostitute tried to blackmail him out of £10,000.
But dad-of-two Pemsel claimed the 40-minute encounter at Princess Anne Hospital in Southampton in December 2013 was to curb “stress” he suffered at work and after helping sick kids in Uganda.
It also emerged that Pemsel, of Compton, Winchester, kept photographs of a patient's radiograph on his iPhone which depicted a bottle up the man's bottom for his own amusement.
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Remarkably he escaped with just a ten-month suspension in March last year rather than being struck off the medical register.
And on Tuesday, he successfully urged the disciplinary panel in Manchester to let him return to work when his suspension expires and is now planning a new career as a family GP.
He told the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service he had now learnt to cope with stress by cycling and using mindfulness exercises.
He is also studying for a diploma in stress management and was even using his experiences to help colleagues manage their own work pressures.
Panel chairman Dr Deborah Brooke told Pemsel: “You wrote that you are abstaining from pornography, and have vowed never to use an escort again.
''You added that you manage stress in other ways now, and that you practice mindfulness and cycling, which you described as ‘life changing.'"
Pemsel confessed: ''Patients would have been appalled and shocked to find out that their doctor, whilst on-call and supposedly ready to respond to life-threatening emergencies, was engaged in their own sexual gratification with an escort in the hospital they were being treated at.
''This is a total abuse of my position and I am, and always will be, utterly ashamed of it.
“By doing so I failed to put my patients first, I abused their trust and I damaged their confidence in the profession."
The trainee anaesthetist texted the woman before their encounter admitting their liaison would be ''naughty'' and ''discretion would be appreciated".
But after she tried to blackmail him, Pemsel came clean to his pregnant wife Sheyi, 40, and reported the threats to the police.
The blackmailers later made contact with the doctor and Pemsel alerted the police who assigned two inspectors to mount a sting operation to trap the culprits at the Hilton Hotel, Basingstoke, on January 6 2014.
Kennedy, also known as Leanne Davies, and a younger man were arrested and pleaded guilty to blackmail in July 2014.
She avoided jail after receiving a two-year suspended sentence but the man, who cannot be named, was jailed for 42 months.
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