HENK: NURSE HAD SECRET FIVE-MONTH AFFAIR WITH MENTAL HEALTH PATIENT

A psychiatric nurse secretly dated a mental health patient and took her on holiday to Majorca, a hearing was told today (Tues).

Jonathan Henk allegedly forced himself on the woman, who he had been counselling for panic attacks, when she told him she was pregnant.

During their relationship, he took her on a three-day getaway to Majorca and let her move into his home with her daughter, the Nursing and Midwifery Council heard.

But their romance fizzled out after the woman, referred to as Patient A, allegedly discovered he was cheating on her with another psychiatric patient who was being treated for depression.

Henka then tried to bully her into dropping her complaint after she reported their fling to the Walsall Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust, it was said.

Cassandra Scarborough, for the NMC, told the hearing that Patient A ‘felt pressured to have sex with Mr Henk’ throughout their affair.

She said: ‘On August 27, 2008, Mr Henk came to her house, she told him she was pregnant, and, upon hearing that news, he said he would stay for lunch.

‘Whilst they were on the sofa, he pulled Patient A to the floor and held her by the hands.

‘Patient A told him she was pregnant and he should leave her alone – he told her she should get an abortion, and then had sex with her without her consent.

‘Suffice to say her health deteriorated as a result of that incident.’

Their relationship is said to have lasted from March to August 2008, while Henk worked at the Halesview Mental Health Centre in Halesowen, West Midlands.

An internal NHS disciplinary inquiry, mounted in July that year after Patient A’s ex-boyfriend reported Henk to the trust, had to be abandoned after he voluntarily resigned his post.

Today’s central London hearing was told that the pair met initially in April 2007 after Patient A was referred to his team to be treated for her panic attacks.

In March the following year, Henk referred her to another member of staff and, around this time, began seeing her outside work.

Ms Scarborough said: ‘Mr Henk engaged in their first intimate contact at his house when he took Patient A to the Merry Hill shopping centre in Dudley, and then said on their way he would need to get changed.

‘He took her to his house, poured her a glass of wine, told her she was beautiful, and kissed her.

‘They had sex for the first time in April 2008, when Mr Henk took her out for a drink in Bromsgrove and she became very drunk.

‘At that stage, he made it clear to her that no-one should find out about their relationship.

‘It is the council’s case that Mr Henk initiated the relationship and that he clearly took advantage of his position with a vulnerable client.’

In June that year, the couple went to Majorca for three days, while the following month Patient A moved into his house.

The panel heard that his behaviour soon became ‘aggressive’, and just weeks after moving in Patient A discovered he had been two-timing her with another woman, Patient B, since May.

After they split up and NHS investigators began interviewing witnesses, Henk is then said to have told her to delete her text messages and to refuse to cooperate with the inquiry.

He allegedly even forced her to write a letter saying she was withdrawing her complaint, before driving her to a post box himself.

Among a series of text messages allegedly sent by Henk to Patient A between August 8 and 13, 2008, he told her: ‘You know I want your babies’.

In another message, he wrote: ‘In bed, and it smells of you.

‘Miss you not being here. I do love you and hop you will be with me again for good this time.’

Henk admits forming a sexual relationship with Patient A, which included taking her on holiday and letting her move in to his home, but he maintains that their exploits were always consensual.

He denies seeing her while she was his patient, that he tried to manipulate the inquiry into his conduct, and that he formed an inappropriate relationship with Patient B.

If found guilty, he could be struck off from the nursing register.

The hearing continues.

ends