A consultant radiologist who worked at Craigavon Area Hospital whose spectacular fall from grace saw him jailed for secretly recording strangers, work colleagues and even family friends using the toilet argued to a tribunal that he could continue to work from home.
Taking part in a Zoom conference call from prison, Mark McClure told the Medical Practitioners Tribunal that if he was allowed to continue to practice as a doctor, either with conditions or after a period of suspension, “he would only wish in the future to work remotely from home”.
The 52-year-old consultant radiologist told the tribunal panel “he is expecting an early release” later this month having served almost half his nine month jail sentence for multiple offences of voyeurism and highlighted that:
– He had been working from home for a private company until his most recent court case;
– He has reflected on his offences and the effect it had in his victims;
– He has developed better coping mechanisms to deal with stress, pressure and the causes of the offences;
– He had an excellent work record until he was first arrested in 2015.
Last December McClure, with an address on the Grange Road in Bangor, was jailed after the entered guilty pleas to 11 counts of voyeurism committed on various dates between 9 July 2014 and 23 December 2014.
Jailing McClure in December, Judge Patrick Lynch QC told the covert pervert that as a “highly respected and highly regarded senior consultant,” he had abused that respect and trust to carry out his seedy offences in the toilets at Craigavon Area Hospital and his home.
“Perhaps even more repellent is that he carried out the same activity at his own home, recording and retaining material for his own sexual gratification,” said the judge who expressed “surprise” that the maximum sentence for voyeurism was a two year jail term.
In addition to the jail sentence, McClure was ordered to sign the police sex offenders register for the next ten years.
It’s the second time that McClure has been dealt with for voyeurism as four years ago in February 2017, he was handed a nine month probation order for trying to record ladies using the toilets in Hillsbrough Private Clinic.
It was that investigation which led to McClure’s second court appearance which related to three specific places where McClure recorded women using the toilet – a bathroom in his marital home, a disabled toilet at the medical education centre at Craigavon Area Hospital and a toilet in the radiography department of CAH.
Despite McClure’s submission to the MPTS however, the chair of the panel Ms. Chitra Karve ruled that his offences were so serious that he should be struck off with immediate effect.
She said McClure’s offences had “breached the fundamental tenets of the medical profession” and that his convictions and conduct “were inconsistent with standards of behaviour to be expected if a medical practitioner.”
“The tribunal was of the view that Dr McClure’s actions involved significant amounts of planning, targeting members of the public, colleagues and family friends,” said Ms. Karve lamenting the fact that McClure had “brought the profession into disrepute” because he had “failed to act with integrity.”
She continued that while McClure “has taken some positive steps” he had not addressed the main issues of the case and by focussing “primarily on his personal circumstances” and his previous good medical practice is “further evidence of his lack of insight.”
There were mitigating factors such as McClure’s remorse and unblemished record but set against that, said the panel, were numerous aggravating factors including the abuse of his professional position “which also involved predatory behaviour” and the “premeditated, calculated offences” which involved multiple victims over a significant period of time.
Ms. Karve said that taking all matters into account and having having considered all of the possible sanctions, “ in the circumstances the tribunal determined that the only appropriate sanction in this case was one of erasure.“
McClure, who has been a doctor since he graduated from Queens in 1991, has 28 days to lodge an appeal against being struck off.
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