A senior nurse has been struck off for harassing female colleagues after telling a trainee her bottom looked ‘amazing’.
Zimbabwean national Alfred Muvheni Mavurayi, 41, based in Kettering, Northamptonshire, ‘constantly’ made sexually explicit comments and ‘leered’ at younger women, a Nursing and Midwifery Council tribunal heard.
He asked a colleague if she would spend the night with him in a hotel after a staff awards evening and made the trainee nurse whose behind he commented on feel like a ‘piece of meat’ by staring at her, the committee was told.
Colleagues told the tribunal that although the psychiatric care unit manager behaved ‘shy’ and ‘like a teenage boy’ in front of women he often became ‘very graphic’ behind their backs.
The mental health nurse had excused his behaviour as ‘harmless banter’, but has now been struck off after the NMC tribunal ruled his behaviour as a senior member of staff was ‘deplorable’.
The panel heard Mr Mavurayi worked for the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust as ward manager of the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).
He had been employed as the ward manager for two years after previously working as the deputy ward manager.
In 2017, the panel heard complaints were raised that Mr Mavurayi had made ‘various inappropriate comments’ and ‘behaved inappropriately’ with junior staff.
The manager was suspended during the subsequent investigation into his alleged behaviour and comments.
He was sacked for gross misconduct following the investigation in February 2018.
The NMC panel heard that between September 2016 and October 2017, Mr Mavurayi repeatedly asked a female trainee nurse out ‘on a date’ on more than one occasion.
The nurse, named only as Colleague A, told the panel her manager was ‘very flirty’ with her and made her feel ‘uncomfortable’.
She said Mr Mavurayi had been ‘using his position’ as her manager to get her to meet him outside of work, and remained ‘fearful of a conflict’ due to her junior position to him.
The panel also heard he made frequent unwanted comments to the junior nurse, such as asking her if she had been ‘doing squats’ because her ‘bum was looking amazing’.
The trainee nurse told the panel: ‘I had this difficulty in my mind that if I said something rude to my manager I could get in trouble.
‘The few times that I did tell him to stop he would just smirk or laugh or say things like telling me to ‘lighten up’.
‘I felt objectified – like a piece of meat – when I was there to do a job.’
The panel also heard Mr Mavurayi also frequently ‘stared’ at his junior colleague’s body, asked her to his office just to ‘talk’ and did nothing to dispel rumours they were ‘sleeping together’.
Another colleague told the NMC tribunal Mr Mavurayi would ‘leer’ at female colleagues.
The ward manager, named only as Colleague B, said: ‘By leering I mean that he would gaze at women very slowly with a weird smile on his face, with no shame.
‘Alfie is quite shy when speaking to women directly but behind their backs he is very graphic.
‘He is like a clumsy coward; like a teenage boy who does not know how to handle them close up.’
The manager also told the panel Mr Mavurayi would often make inappropriate comments, once saying of a pregnant female colleague: ‘If [she] was not pregnant I would fuck her – I’m going to smash that’.
He also told one colleague over the phone he wanted to see or touch her ‘pum pum’ – which the tribunal heard is a Patois word for vagina.
Panel Chair Bryan Hume ruled Mr Mavurayi’s actions were ‘deplorable’, and said he had failed to lead the culture of the PICU ward in a ‘professional manner’.
He said: ‘The panel considered that Mr Mavurayi breached professional boundaries on numerous occasions and repeatedly harassed more than one colleague over a prolonged period of time.
‘Mr Mavurayi was a senior member of staff, and should have led the culture in a professional manner as a manager but did not so.
‘The panel concluded that Mr Mavurayi’s conduct was deplorable and a significant departure from professional standards that it amounted to nothing short of misconduct.’
The panel struck Mr Mavurayi off the medical register after ruling his actions were ‘fundamentally incompatible’ with him remaining on the register.
