A nurse who carried out a “shocking” assault on a sleeping non-verbal vulnerable woman with Down syndrome and severe intellectual disability has had her registration cancelled by the president of the High Court.
Mr Justice Peter Kelly said on Monday he had “no hesitation” in confirming the Nursing and Midwifery Board’s decision to cancel the registration of Anne Moffatt, of Ardnaglas, Ballymote, Co Sligo.
He agreed with the board the assault at a residential services centre on the night of August 10/11th 2018 was the “ultimate violation” levelled at a vulnerable person while in their bed asleep and was of such an “egregious” nature as to render Ms Moffatt unfit to practise as a nurse.
A mother of three working as an agency nurse at the time of the assault, Ms Moffatt had admitted before Manorhamilton District Court last June to assault under section 3 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act. She was convicted and fined €1,000.
Ms Moffatt had told the District Court she had bought half a litre of vodka before commencing work and consumed that before and during work. She apologised to the victim, expressed remorse and said she was experiencing issues with alcohol and depression which had resulted in her hospitalisation for a time in 2017.
After the board notified her last August of a meeting to consider her situation, she wrote to it saying she would not be attending the meeting and believed the appropriate action was to cancel her registration.
The board proceeded last September to consider the matter in circumstances including she had admitted an offence tried on indictment. It concluded her registration should be cancelled.
On Monday, Stephen McLoughlin, a solicitor with Beauchamps, applied for the cancellation order on the board’s behalf. Mr McLoughlin said this was an “egregious” assault on an unfortunate person who was asleep at the time. The nurse had admitted the assault before the District Court but an aggravating factor was that, at the time of the assault, the nurse had attempted to mislead about the cause of the injuries to the victim and had suggested she had fallen and had hit her head off a door frame.
A hospital took the view the injuries were inflicted in a non-accidental manner, he said.
The nurse later admitted assault and there were suggestions of alcohol and mental health issues.
In his ruling, Mr Justice Kelly said the circumstances giving rise to the nurse’s conviction of assault were about “as bad as they could be” from the point of view of a nurse. Nurses are respected as skilled and trained persons to provide care and attention to those who are ill and disabled, he said. This victim was aged in her 40s with Down syndrome and severe intellectual disability and was being cared for in a specialist care facility. While asleep in her bed, an assault was perpetrated on her by a nurse charged with her care. The assault involved the nurse striking the woman with the back of her right hand five or six times and hitting her on the forehead with one of her flipflops.
Photos demonstrated a “quite nasty” assault of a forceful nature and showed the woman suffered bruising to the face and scalp and had some hair missing. The photos also showed some hair on the floor. The victim was not just vulnerable due to having Down syndrome and intellectual disability but also because she is non-verbal and therefore could not describe what happened to her or the after-effects of such an assault, he said. The board had “quite properly” concluded there is no place in the nursing profession for the respondent, he held.
