Doctor sent explicit sexual texts to 'schoolgirl'

A doctor has been stripped of his medical licence after he sent sexually explicit texts to an undercover police officer posing as a 13-year-old girl, a tribunal heard.

Mihir Chandarana, a specialist registrar in breast surgery, was removed from the medical register following a hearing by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service.

A report from the 42-year-old's tribunal hearing said he had contacted a girl named "Paris", aged 13 from London, when he worked at hospitals in Leicestershire during the pandemic.

His conduct led to him pleading guilty to intentionally attempting to communicate with a person under 16 for the purposes of sexual gratification in November 2023, and he received a suspended prison sentence in January.

He was a specialist registrar in breast surgery at Glenfield Hospital in Leicestershire and had on-call duties at Leicester General Hospital at the time of the events, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Chandarana, of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, had communicated with "Paris" in a sexual nature via the phone apps Kik and Snapchat between 4 November 2020 and 26 March 2021.

The tribunal report said on 17 March 2021, “the two engaged in general conversation regarding ‘Paris’ being at school”.

It read: “Dr Chandarana stated that ‘Paris’ would be punished if caught".

He also sent winking emojis and a sexually explicit GIF.

Chandarana "felt under immense pressure both personally and professionally during the Covid-19 pandemic and found it especially difficult being away from loved ones overseas".

The tribunal accepted that UK doctors "were under immense pressure at this time" and that people may turn to sexual entertainment as an outlet, but this did not explain engaging in a course of criminal conduct with a child under 16, the report said.

Chandarana was "deeply ashamed" of his behaviour and self-reported himself to the General Medical Council (GMC) "promptly" with full disclosure of the police investigation.

He received a four-month prison sentence, suspended for a year, at Chesterfield Magistrates' Court and was required to carry out 25 days of rehabilitation activities and 200 hours of unpaid work.

He was added to the sex offenders register for seven years and restricted by a sexual harm prevention order for five years.

He pleaded guilty to the charges faced at the first available opportunity, the report added.

“The tribunal was of the view that what Dr Chandarana put forward as personal mitigation did not change the seriousness of what he had done or excuse his lack of judgement," the report said.

In conclusion, the report said: “Dr Chandarana’s conviction is a particularly serious departure from the standards of GMC and is fundamentally incompatible with being a registered doctor."

The tribunal found his conviction "inevitably brought the profession into disrepute" and determined the only appropriate sanction was one of erasure, according to the report.

Clare Teeney, chief people officer at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL), which runs the two hospitals Chandarana had been working for, said he was a surgical trainee there from 3 February 2021 until 13 December 2023.

"Mr Chandarana did not undertake any work for the trust from the point we were made aware of the charges against him," she said.

"He was dismissed from his employment with UHL after pleading guilty to the charges.”

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