A MENTAL health nurse has been struck off after using his place of work to upload indecent images of a child to the internet.

Ajay Richard Bladen, a mental health nurse who worked at St Anne’s Hospital for the Dorset Healthcare NHS Trust, received a police caution on September 17, 2021 for making an indecent image of a child and possessing extreme pornography.

He was struck off following a Nursery and Midwifery Council Fitness and Practise Committee meeting earlier this month.

Panel members Bryan Hume, Kathryn Smith and Caroline Taylor found Bladen’s fitness to practise was impaired after he received a conditional caution from police for the offence.

The meeting heard how Bladen, who had been a registered mental health nurse since September 2014, was arrested at work on July 1, 2021, after images of children had been downloaded at his place of work. He was immediately suspended pending an internal investigation.

Police also received information from the National Crime Agency that a KIK account had uploaded indecent images to the internet between January 12, 2021 and January 16, 2021. The IP address used was Bladen’s home address and his place of work.

On Bladen’s mobile phone, officers found one category A indecent image and one extreme pornographic image.

The nurse, in his police interview, described himself as being “addicted to the social media application KIK” and he was a “shy, socially awkward kind of person”.

He created a female KIK account “in an attempt to speak to more people” and acknowledged he had seen indecent images of children on the app.

Bladen denied being sexually attracted to children but admitted he had passed on indecent videos and/or images of children when a group chat member asked for a previously sent video or images to be sent to them.

He claimed he uploaded indecent images in order to meet the requirements to remain in the group chat.

The panel found the aggravating factors in the case were that Bladen had accepted the police caution, his behaviour took place over a sustained period of time, the offence involved a vulnerable section of the population and there was a risk of patients being put at risk of future harm.

Mitigating factors included there being no clinical concerns, Bladen cooperated fully with the police investigation and he completed a targeted sexual offences course.

“Mr Bladen’s criminal offending has seriously undermined the public’s trust and confidence in him,” the panel found.

“His criminal offending and subsequent caution is fundamentally incompatible with being a registered professional nurse.

“Only a striking-off order will be sufficient to protect patients, maintain public confidence in the profession and maintain professional standards.”

Baden was also made subject of an interim suspension order for 18 months.

Cara Southgate, Dorset HealthCare’s deputy director of nursing, therapies and quality, said: “The safety and wellbeing of our patients is our paramount concern at all times. We co-operated fully with the police investigation into this matter and Mr Bladen was immediately suspended while we carried out our own internal inquiry.

"Mr Bladen no longer works for the Trust. We also informed the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

“No workplace equipment was involved in this offence. We would also like to stress that Mr Bladen did not work with children or young people as part of his role at the Trust.

"Nonetheless, this was shocking and appalling behaviour which is totally unacceptable from a member of our staff. We take any incidents like this extremely seriously.”