Explicit texts ‘exposed nurse’
A disgraced senior nurse’s alleged sexual relationship with a severely disabled mental health patient was exposed when explicit messages he’d sent her were seen on her phone.
The man has resigned from his job, police are investigating, and now health officials say they’ve passed new information to detectives after The Press revealed case details in December.
Former colleagues say they’re appalled and devastated by the nurse’s actions and knew nothing of his links to the 2010 suicide of Tineke Foley, 33, a mental health patient who made sexual abuse claims against him – allegations the police did not substantiate in a botched investigation.
‘‘I was absolutely horrified when I heard about it,’’ a woman who worked with the man told The Press. ‘‘He seemed to be a lovely, affable bloke. I never got the sense he was abusing his position in such an awful way. ‘‘I hope he’s held accountable.’’ Health sources say the nurse’s resignation in about July last year came after a patient in a Christchurch mental health facility showed someone sexually explicit text messages, including images, he’d sent her. The woman was severely disabled, and had significant mental health issues, the sources say.
There are concerns the man, who can’t be identified because of a suppression order related to Foley’s death, has taken advantage of other vulnerable patients.
He didn’t have anything to say about the allegations when The Press approached him outside his suburban Christchurch home last month. ‘‘Have a lovely weekend,’’ he said, before getting in his car, winding up the window and driving away.
Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand, formerly the Ministry of Health, has repeatedly refused to answer a series of detailed questions about the case, saying it would be ‘‘inappropriate’’ to do so ‘‘while the matter is subject to a
police investigation’’.
But when asked this week if it had fielded any new complaints about the nurse, the agency’s South Island regional director of hospital and specialist services, Dan PallisterCoward, said ‘‘since the publication of the story [in The Press] last December, staff have come forward with further information which has been passed on to the police and the Nursing Council’’.
It is understood some nurses have only come to question some of the man’s behaviours after learning of the allegations. For instance, one woman described how he’d send all nurses on a ward on breaks at the same time, leaving him alone with vulnerable patients.
Police and the Nursing Council declined to comment this week.
Previously, a Nursing Council spokeswoman said the nurse’s practising certificate had been suspended, which meant he couldn’t work as a registered nurse.
Foley’s mother, Ebony Foley, said she was pleased to hear others had come forward with information about the nurse and urged others with concerns about his behaviour to do the same.
On the eve of The Press story last year, Foley said she received a call from a clinical leader at Te Whatu Ora Waitaha, formerly the Canterbury District Health Board, who apologised to her repeatedly.
‘‘She just said, ‘We’re so sorry that we didn’t protect your daughter – that we didn’t keep her safe’.’’
Foley said it was the first time she’d received an apology regarding her daughter’s care from someone working in the health sector, which for many years had seemed intent on protecting its own interests rather than acknowledging any shortcomings.
‘‘I was in tears afterwards. I just wish we’d had it way back in 2010.’’
Tineke Foley, who had an extensive history of mental illness, complained to police in 2009 that she’d been sexually abused by the nurse while she was a patient at a Christchurch mental health facility.
She was interviewed by a detective the next day, but her allegations were never substantiated, and five months later, on March 25, 2010, she killed herself.
The Independent Police Conduct Authority later found significant shortcomings with the police investigation, and the detectives involved were reprimanded.
A police professional standards manager told a 2012 coronial inquest that a police review of the case found the detective who first looked into Foley’s complaint ‘‘formed a mindset’’ about her claims within a matter of hours.
She was not medically examined, nor interviewed according to adult sexual assault investigation guidelines, in which the detective was not trained, the professional standards manager said.
A detective inspector who reviewed the investigation found: ‘‘The investigator should have appreciated the vulnerability of the victim in this case . . . [she] was the ‘perfect victim’, because of her lack of credibility in any complaint.’’
The coroner found the ‘‘lack of resolution regarding the allegation of sexual abuse impacted further on Ms Foley’s already negative view of some aspects of her treatment’’ and her willingness to be admitted again to a mental health facility.
Ebony Foley previously said she had no doubt the allegations her daughter – a talented musician and artist – made about the ‘‘manipulative and dangerous’’ nurse were true.
He was like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, she said. He was well-presented and seemed nice, but behind closed doors he was ‘‘extraordinarily devious’’ and ‘‘knew how to play her’’.
‘‘If it hadn’t been for [the nurse] she’d still be here, so he’s got a lot to answer for.’’