Sir Bradley Wiggins Pubic Hair Tweet Cost NHS Worker Their Job

NHS Worker Admits Pubic Hair Wiggins Tweet
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Bradley Wiggins sporting his iconic sideburns
PA

A hospital worker boasted on Twitter that he intended to use pubic hair shaved from a patient to stick on his face and create the famous sideburns sported by Sir Bradley Wiggins, a disciplinary hearing has been told.

Paul Nam used the pseudonym "Sir Cockhardt" on the social networking site to tweet: "I was going to save the pubes from the first patient I shaved today and stick them on Wiggins-style", the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) was told.

The operating department practitioner, who was working at United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, posted the tweet on August 1 2012 - the first of a series on the site before a member of the operating theatre team raised the alarm and Nam was suspended in September that year.

Other tweets posted by Nam under the pseudonym included "working in gynae theatres AGAIN today. I'm seriously considering going gay! The thought of looking at one more aged flange", the HCPC heard.

He also posted a photograph on Twitter of the trust board and executive team with an accompanying comment "Bunch of Vandals except top right, No, he's a complete *******".

The hearing was told he breached confidentiality by posting a photograph of an ambulance and commenting "casualty busy as ever! I am now waiting in A&E for the victims of a light aircraft crash, will keep you posted" and also tweeted a photograph of a theatre list showing surgeons and anaesthetists names and procedures with the comment "think yourself lucky your (sic) not doing my list".

Nam, who is present for the hearing in central London, has admitted posting the tweets and further admitted misconduct.

His lawyer, Lee Gledhill, has told the panel hearing the allegations that it is up to them to decide whether his misconduct amounts to his fitness to practise being impaired.

Elena Elia, for the HCPC, said Nam had accepted that he had posted the tweets and apologised for them in a letter he sent once an internal investigation was under way.

He attributed his behaviour to "frustration for my own predicament" including his "limited career progression" at the trust. In relation to the Wiggns tweet, she said Nam had commented: "There was no actual patient, it was just a joke around Wiggns' sideburns."

The HCPC was told that Nam, who began working for the trust in April 2007, resigned ahead of a disciplinary hearing in February last year.

The hearing, which took place in his absence, found that, had he not resigned, he would have been dismissed, Ms Elia told the panel.