A Croydon nurse has been struck off after he touched a colleague and repeatedly asked her to kiss him during a night shift.
Regel Cuico trapped a fellow nurse at her desk and touched her thigh several times when there was nobody else around, a misconduct hearing heard.
A report into Mr Cuico’s behaviour found he approached a colleague on multiple occasions on August 23 and 24 last year.
He had been working alongside the nurse during a night shift when he asked her if she would consider cheating on her partner.
When she said no, Mr Cuico is alleged to have then told her he had “never kissed a white girl before”, and asked if she would kiss him.
The victim wrote in a witness statement: “‘Mr Cuico asked me if I would ever consider cheating on my partner and I said 'No.'
“He told me that he had never kissed a white girl before and asked if I would kiss him. I said 'No.'
“It was then that he wheeled his chair over to mine so that I was stuck between him and the nurses’ station desk.
“He started caressing my left outer thigh up and down several times. He was asking me multiple times to 'just kiss him one time...come on you're so hot, just one kiss, your partner never needs to know.' Or words to that effect.
“I repeatedly said 'No, no, no, please stop.' I did not want to make eye contact with him in case he thought it was an invitation, so I was staring down, looking at my notes. I said 'no' more loudly and he shushed me.”
The nurse explained that she finished her shift and then phoned her boyfriend and family to tell them what had happened.
She quickly returned to the hospital and reported the incident to her manager.
Mr Cuico has denied all allegations but a tribunal found his accounts to be “inconsistent and implausible and considered that as he was the senior colleague and should have realised that the conversation as inappropriate and discontinued it rather than encourage it”.
Summing up the case a report added: “Mr Cuico’s actions were significant departures from the standards expected of a registered nurse and are fundamentally incompatible with him remaining on the register.
“The panel was of the view that the findings in this particular case demonstrate that Mr Cuico’s actions were serious and to allow him to continue practising would undermine public confidence in the profession and in the NMC as a regulatory body.”
Mr Cuico had worked at the hospital, which is not named in the report, as a nurse since December 2022.
It is understood that Mr Cuico does not wish to return to nursing and intends to return to the Philippines.
