No punishment for knicker stretcher

A Boots optician who washed a colleague’s knickers and stretched them out to ‘look enormous’ has escaped sanction from his governing body.

Rupesh Patel ‘humiliated’ the woman when he hung her white underpants on the line ‘for all to see’.

The woman, identified only as ‘Ms A’, had been ‘hugely embarrassed’, but Patel told the General Optical Council (GOC) he intended it only as a joke.

Patel told the GOC: ‘Well, for me at the time it was pretty much like a laugh and joke between friends.’

He said it was intended as a ‘childish joke’ but accepts that it was ‘inappropriate’.

Lydia Barnfather, Patel’s lawyer, asked him how he ended up on possession of a pair of Ms A’s white underpants.

He said: ‘Maybe the jokey person that I used to be, I kept a pair that I could show her and nobody else.’

Patel had been doing the washing and separated the white panties into a separate pile away from the colours, the GOC heard.

When Ms Barnfather asked what the purpose of photographing them was, Patel said: ‘Just so that I could show her, Ms A, “oh look what I’ve found” type of thing, but not in any way a sexual manner.’

Ms A told Patel to stop texting her after the incident, and he complied at first, but they became friends again over the following months.

In November Patel sent a shirtless photo of himself with his eyes closed eating a box a Cadbury’s Heroes with the caption ‘big day tomorrow’, in anticipation of a trip to Cadbury World the following day.

GOC lawyer Ben Rich had claimed that Patel’s actions in ‘laundrygate’ were sexually motivated, but the panel cleared him of the allegation.

The GOC heard he found the incident highly amusing at the time.

They also found that the Cadbury’s photograph was not inappropriate behaviour, as Ms A responded to the picture saying ‘awesome’, and asked how long he would be staying in London for.

She had also sent Patel photos of herself in bed earlier that year.

Ms A only reported Patel for ‘laundrygate’ and the Cadbury’s photo when a mutual colleague, ‘Mr B’, told her that Patel had bragged about doing ‘everything except full sex’ with Ms A, which was not true, the GOC heard.

When asked if he had been sexually intimate with Ms A, or ever claimed to have been, Patel replied: ‘No’.

Patel was suspended from the Association of British Dispensing Opticians (ABDO) and Manchester Boots in December 2016.

He denied he told Mr B he had done ‘pretty much everything except full sex’, claiming that he had met up with Mr B in late October or early November and said he thought Ms A was ‘my idea of a perfect woman’.

Patel also said words to the effect of ‘she’s the one’, the GOC heard.

‘Did you say anything to him along the lines of “we are sexually intimate”?’ asked Ms Barnfather.

‘Absolutely not,’ said Patel.

‘Or “we’ve done everything other than full sexual intercourse”?’ asked Ms Barnfather.

‘No,’ said Patel.

Patel said shortly after he sent Ms A the Cadbury’s photo Mr B tried to ‘probe’ him as they were walking through London together.

He became indignant at the attempt to extract information and said ‘we’ve done everything under the sun’ but that they hadn’t been ‘shagging’, the GOC heard.

Patel told the panel he said this because he was irritated that Ms A hadn’t confronted him about it herself and instead sent Mr B to ‘extract information’ from him.

Ms Barnfather told the panel: ‘It’s Mr Patel’s case that Mr B’s understanding and impression is a result of his own inability to conceive of intimacy that is non-sexual.’

Patel and Ms A had been close before ‘laundrygate’, and been intimate in a non-sexual way several times, the GOC heard.

On one occasion Patel offered to rub foot lotion onto her feet and she agreed he could do so, Patel said.

Another time they ‘spooned’ and hugged on a bed together in a completely platonic way, he said.

He said this is what he meant when they had ‘done everything under the sun’.

Patel had failed to mention that he had taken a photo of Ms A’s underwear in the meetings, but Ms Barnfather said: ‘As far as Mr Patel was concerned the photo of the underwear was not the concern as much as the Cadbury’s photo.’

Patel admitted washing Ms A’s clothes in a way that deliberately drew attention to her underwear, keeping an item of Ms A’s underwear, taking a photograph of an item of Ms A’s underwear, and telling others about the above stated photograph.

The panel found that these allegations amounted to misconduct.

He denied telling Mr B he had been sexually intimate with Ms A and not fully disclosing the nature of the allegation against him to his employer, and denied his actions were dishonest –
but the panel found these charges proved.

He was previously alleged to have sent an excessive number of text messages to Ms A after ‘laundrygate’, but this charge was dropped by the GOC.

The Cadbury’s photograph was found not to be inappropriate conduct by the panel.

The allegation that the ‘laundrygate’ incident was sexually motivated was dropped by the panel, who ruled that Patel’s fitness to practise was not impaired by reason of misconduct.

Panel chairman James Kellock said Patel would not even be warned over his conduct and said:

‘Patel accepted that although he and Ms A enjoyed a close friendship there had never been a sexual relationship. His conversation with Mr B came at a time when his relationship with Ms A had become strained.

‘He did not suggest to Mr B that he and Ms A had ever had sex. The information supplied did not involve him bragging.

‘The conversation was very brief and amounted to an exaggeration only of a relationship that was no secret in the professional community. The Committee regarded it as a clumsy attempt to explain the relationship made without malice or any ulterior motive.

‘The Committee firstly considered the dishonesty and formed the view that it was at
the low end of the scale.

‘The Committee considered that this was a one- off incident in unique circumstances
that occurred over two years ago. The Registrant had a pervious unblemished career
and no incidents have arisen since.

‘The Committee considered that there was no purpose to be served in issuing a written warning. The contents of such a warning would only contain information that the Registrant had already appreciated and acted upon.

‘He was well aware of the effect that his behaviour had on Ms A and had taken steps to address it.’
ends