The bigamist nurse who told his fifth wife he was a surgeon
A NURSE who duped his wife and friends into thinking he was a surgeon for seven years was struck off yesterday.
Kevin O’Flanagan, 54, told people he was a highly regarded orthopaedic specialist. The fantasist – who worked in operating theatres – kept a human hip joint as a coffee table ornament and wore surgical scrubs around his home, sometimes as pyjamas.
O’Flanagan – who had also previously been cautioned by police for bigamy – described himself as ‘clinical lead – head and neck/oral and maxillofacial surgery’ in an online profile. But his lies unrav- elled in May 2014 when his fifth wife, Dr Susan Hill, 61, became suspicious of a letter which appeared to offer him a high-powered job.
Details were handed to his bosses at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex, and he was suspended while an inquiry was carried out.
O’Flanagan has now been struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council after a seven-day fitness to practise hearing in London, which also heard he had fraudulently pocketed more than £4,500 from shifts he didn’t work.
Dr Hill, who married O’Flanagan in 2010, has divorced him on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour. She revealed he was cautioned for bigamy by Surrey Police in 1997 after marrying for a second time before the decree absolute from his first wife came through.
O’Flanagan is understood to have been working as an area manager for a medical technology company recently. A man who answered his phone yesterday said: ‘You’ve got the wrong number. I don’t know who you’re talking about.’
Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust, which runs Broomfield Hospital, declined to comment last night, claiming it was unaware of the outcome of the hearing which concluded mid-morning.