Clues missed over children's doctor who abused patients, report says
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Version 0 of 1. A paedophile doctor was able to abuse young cancer patients by manipulating hospital rules to avoid detection, a report has found. Myles Bradbury was jailed for 16 years last December after he admitted abusing 18 victims at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge, where he had worked as a paediatric haematologist for five years. An independent report found that the 42-year-old from Herringswell, Suffolk, had taken advantage of the hospital’s appointments systems and a chaperone policy for young patients, which allowed him to abuse children behind a curtain while their parents were in the room. Bradbury, who used a “spy pen” to take secret photographs of his victims during consultations, was described by a trial judge as one of the worst paedophiles he has ever seen. He pleaded guilty to 25 offences dating back to 2009, including sexual assault, voyeurism and possessing more than 16,000 indecent images involving boys aged 10-16. Related: Scotland Yard assigns team to oversee all historical child sex abuse investigations The report by Verita, a consultancy that specialises in public sector investigations, found there were several clues to Bradbury’s crimes prior to his arrest but no member of staff suspected unprofessional or criminal behaviour because of his excuses. Bradbury was phoning families from his personal number to make appointments and saw some children more often than necessary without recording the consultations. He was at one point confronted by a doctor who noticed he was seeing a boy without a chaperone, but he said it was at the patient’s request. Staff also noticed that Bradbury was seeing patients out ofhours but thought he was doing it for the patients’ benefit. He refused to allow medical students to observe his appointments, saying he was busy, and went on holiday with the mother of one of his patients, after which he agreed he could no longer be the boy’s doctor. A registrar also noticed that Bradbury was very focused on how his patients’ medical conditions were affecting the development of puberty. One mother witnessed the doctor slip his hand under her daughter’s top without warning but said she did not want to question his professionalism. All of Bradbury’s victims, some of whom have since died, suffered from leukaemia, haemophilia or other serious conditions. The report, however, praised the Cambridge University hospitals NHS foundation trust for acting decisively after a woman complained that her 11-year-old grandson, who was in remission from leukaemia, was asked to strip naked and touch his own genitals. After the woman informed the paediatric day unit, Bradley was suspended. The hospital alerted Suffolk police, which had two weeks previously been independently alerted to a Canadian police investigation into Bradbury after he purchased online an indecent video of children. The report also acknowledged that preventing abuse through a chaperone system was in reality completely impracticable. “As all but a tiny number of doctors can be entirely trusted with their patients, this means that in almost all cases this type of chaperoning will be unnecessary and as these resources will have to come from elsewhere in an already financially overstretched NHS,” it said. Jag Ahluwalia, the medical director of the trust, told the investigation his staff were duped. “To a degree I have beaten myself up over it, and so have his paediatric oncology colleagues, but I think they were all groomed along the way,” he said. David Wherrett, the acting chief executive of the trust, apologised again to patients and families “who placed their trust in Myles Bradbury during their treatment here, and instead became victims of his cold and calculating abuse”. |