Proof (not that we really did it) that there’s hierarchy in culture.
Alternative headline to make a point:
Citing cultural differences, the British Practitioners Tribunal only suspends German Nazi doctor who groped the Jew,… for six months.
Nigerian GP who groped suicidal woman telling her ‘you want it’ keeps job after he blamed ‘cultural differences’
- Dr Emmanuel Kanu stroked the woman’s breast and told her: ‘You want it’
- General Medical Council said he should be struck off, but will keep his job
- Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service suspended Kanu, 36, for six months
- They found father-of-one guilty of sexually motivated serious misconduct
A doctor groped a vulnerable divorcee in her home days after she had attempted suicide – but kept his job after citing ‘cultural differences’.
Dr Emmanuel Kanu stroked her breast, repeatedly tried to kiss her and told her, ‘You want it’ when she tried to escape his clutches during the visit – which he hid from colleagues.
When she later texted him to tell him to stop ringing her he withheld his number on the next call.
But Kanu, a married Nigerian father of one, has been allowed to keep his job by a fitness to practise panel even though the General Medical Council called for him to be struck off.
He told the panel he had not molested the patient and claimed ‘cultural differences’ led to the visit on September 3, 2011, saying: ‘There is a clear divide between the doctor and the patient here, which is very different in Nigeria.’
But the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service only suspended the 36-year-old for six months, despite finding he was guilty of sexually motivated serious misconduct.
Campaigners against violence towards women criticised the ‘incredibly lenient penalty’. Nicole Westmarland, former chairman of Rape Crisis and Professor of Criminology at Durham University, asked ‘what it takes for a doctor to be struck off’.
She said: ‘This doctor has committed a number of sexual offences on a woman who was in a very vulnerable position.
‘A six-month suspension is an incredibly lenient penalty and the question remains: what will happen within the six months that will supposedly change his behaviour when he returns to work?’
The doctor, who had recently completed GP training and was undergoing specialist training in psychiatry, was on a locum shift at the A&E department of Darlington Memorial Hospital, County Durham, when the divorcee was brought in after taking a ‘substantial overdose’.
