Lecturer tried to hypnotise student, tribunal hears

A PSYCHOLOGY lecturer who tried to seduce a student by hypnotising her has been struck off.

Dr Waseem Alladin stroked the girl’s face with a rose, told her they had been lovers in another life and praised her “serpent power” f or making her “irresistible to men”.

When the mature pupil, identified as Student 1, rejected his advances, he complained she “wasn’t submitting totally to him”, and warned if she didn’t give in to his advances, then he had five other students waiting. Alladin manipulated the vulnerable student and tried to stop her from taking prescribed antidepressant medication and undergo hypnosis instead.

The tribunal was told the lecturer eventually convinced her to undergo hypnosis. He took pictures of her while she was hypnotised, put a photograph of her up in his office and told her she was his soulmate, and that he had been waiting 600 years to be back with her. He also tried to put two other female students into a trance, persuading one to send him a “full body” photograph of herself so he could heal her.

A panel at the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service was told a group of female students met with the lecturer for informal meetings, calling themselves “The Apprentice Club”.

The tribunal heard how Alladin hypnotised a girl identified as Student 3 by “staring into her eyes” and massaged her head.

During t he s ession, which he recorded on his phone, he said she

“glowed and smiled” and asked what she would do if he tried to kidnap her.

Another member of the club, Student 2, said she had a strange experience while sitting with the lecturer and thought he was trying to hypnotise her. She later sent him a “full-body photograph” of herself after he told her he needed it for “healing”.

After the students began to tell each other about the lecturer’s bizarre behaviour, Alladin tried to drive a wedge between them. He told Student 1 his spirit guide had told him he couldn’t trust Student 2, who he said had a darkness within her. Meanwhile, he told Student 2 that his higher being had told him to be mistrustful of Student 1 as he had yet to work her out.

The allegations came to light after one of the girls made a complaint to the student advice service at the university, which cannot be named.

Throughout the tribunal, Alladin maintained he had no sexual interest in any of the girls.

He said: “It has been claim[ed] that I was sucking her toes, I was putting my thumb in her ears. That is revolting. It’s not my behaviour.”

But the tribunal found his behaviour to be sexually motivated and amounted to misconduct. He was struck off with immediate effect.

It concluded: “There was no element of coercion, but the behaviour had predatory elements in certain other aspects, in that it sought to exploit the health problems [Aladdin] perceived Student 1 and Student 3 to be experiencing. Furthermore, it was undertaken with sexual gratification in mind.”