Nursing and Midwifery Council determination — substantive hearing

NMC panel strikes off nurse Aswani Kumar Dreepaul over child sexual communication conviction

The Nursing and Midwifery Council has struck mental health nurse Aswani Kumar Dreepaul off the register after he was convicted of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child. The panel found his insight into the offending remained very limited.

MedicWatch editorial · Published 12 August 2026 · Updated 18 August 2026

Erasure (struck off the register)

Added to MedicWatch: 17 August 2026Report a correction

What does “struck off the register” mean?

Being struck off (the regulator calls this "erasure") removes the practitioner from the register. They are no longer permitted to practise this profession in the UK. Erasure can be reviewed after a minimum of five years, but is otherwise indefinite.

Concerning Aswani Kumar Dreepaul, nurse (Nursing and Midwifery Council 07F2312E).

Decision date: 12 August 2026 · Hearing started 12 August 2026

In plain English

The NMC's Fitness to Practise Committee found that mental health nurse Aswani Kumar Dreepaul's fitness to practise was impaired by reason of his conviction. In March 2025 he was convicted of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child, after exchanging messages with someone he believed to be a 13-year-old girl. The panel said his insight was very limited and that his conduct was incompatible with remaining on the register. It made a striking-off order and imposed an interim suspension order for 18 months.

Charges

That you, a registered nurse: 1. On 25 March 2025 were convicted of the offence, Adult attempt to engage in sexual communication with a child, contrary to section 1(1) of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981, AND in light of the above, your fitness to practise is impaired by reason of your conviction. The case was categorised as a conviction case.

Findings

The panel found Charge 1 proved on the basis of the certificate of conviction, which under Rule 31(2) is conclusive proof, together with Mr Dreepaul's admission of the conviction in his Case Management Form. The conviction followed his arrest on 26 February 2023 while employed as a registered mental health nurse at Broadmoor Hospital; for around two weeks he had engaged in sexual communications over social media with a person he believed to be a 13-year-old girl, who was in fact a decoy operated by an activist group. The panel found limbs (b) and (c) of the Grant test engaged, held that his insight remained very limited and that the concerns were behavioural and attitudinal, and determined that his fitness to practise was currently impaired on both public protection and public interest grounds.

Mitigating factors

The panel took into account the following mitigating feature: Mr Dreepaul pleaded guilty to the criminal offence at an early opportunity.

Aggravating factors

The panel took into account the following aggravating features: the conviction concerned an attempt to commit a specified sexual offence of a particularly serious nature involving a person whom Mr Dreepaul believed to be a 13-year-old girl; he demonstrated significant and continuing lack of insight into the seriousness and wider implications of his offending; the offending behaviour was fundamentally attitudinal in nature; and his reflective piece demonstrated little meaningful insight and did not adequately address the underlying behaviour or its wider impact on public confidence in the nursing profession.

Source

All facts on this page are drawn from the publicly published Nursing and Midwifery Council determination linked below. MedicWatch does not editorialise the regulator’s findings.

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