A doctor who poured beer down a junior colleague’s cleavage at a Christmas party before licking it off has been suspended.
Dr Mark Johnson, who was working as a consultant at West Suffolk Hospital at the time, cannot practise for a year after he was also found to have touched the woman’s breasts at the work party on 9 December 2022.
Dr Johnson also sent her “derogatory” and “sexually demeaning” comments about other colleagues in “inappropriate” messages sent between November 2018 and November 2019, a tribunal found.
The hearing was also told that Dr Johnson made remarks to another colleague about her own breasts.
Evidence given by the first woman was read out to the hearing, in which she said: “Dr Johnson purposely poured his beer down my chest and proceeded to clean it up using his mouth.”
The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPT) said some of the doctor’s behaviour was sexually motivated and deemed sexual harassment.
It added that “acting in a sexually motivated way, whilst at a work Christmas party, towards a junior member of staff, was an abuse of Dr Johnson’s more senior position”.
Dr Johnson left the hospital in 2023, a decade after joining, following disciplinary proceedings launched over the Christmas party allegations. In October of that year, he took up a temporary post as a consultant at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, which was made permanent in June 2024.
Following the findings of “serious” misconduct, a representative for the General Medical Council (GMC) argued Dr Johnson should be banned from practising indefinitely, saying that his actions marked a “grave violation of that colleague’s dignity and a serious abuse of his position of trust”.
The panel concluded: “The conduct was inherently serious, deliberate, and sexually motivated. It represented an abuse of authority within a workplace social setting.”
However, the panel decided that erasure from the medical register would be “disproportionate” and instead decided to suspend him for 12 months.
Dr Richard Goodwin, medical director at West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, which oversees West Suffolk Hospital, said: “We referred Dr Johnson to the GMC following an internal process, prompted by reports of potential sexual misconduct.
“We’re committed to eradicating sexual harassment and abuse in the workplace by promoting a culture that fosters openness and transparency, and never tolerates unwanted, harmful or inappropriate sexual behaviours.”
A spokesperson for University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, which is responsible for the Royal Sussex County Hospital, said: “We can confirm that this doctor is not currently working at the Trust, and that the process of formally ending his employment is starting immediately.”
