A senior hospital consultant is suing one of Britain’s biggest private healthcare chains for £2.7million after he was accused of sexually assaulting a nurse by commenting on her ‘lovely biscuits’.
Vascular surgeon Simon Payne was suspended and later barred from working at Spire Healthcare over the alleged incident, in which he is said to have made the comments as she lifted a box of biscuits from a shelf.
The 57-year-old accuses Spire of breach of contract in deciding to ban him despite a key investigation into his behaviour ruling that his conduct did not amount to sexual harassment, sexual behaviour or sexual assault.
Hitting back, the private hospital group said Mr Payne had faced a long record of accusations of inappropriate behaviour and harassment towards female staff, according to papers lodged with the High Court.
Spire claims his behaviour culminated in comments made involving a biscuits tin, which are alleged to have been made by the surgeon in the consultants’ rest room at Spire Southampton Hospital in July 2018.
Vascular surgeon Simon Payne is suing Spire Healthcare for £2.7million after he was accused of sexually assaulting a nurse by commenting on her ‘lovely biscuits’
In a statement, the nurse said she perceived it as ‘a sexual assault, coming in [sic] my personal space, talk to me and trying to be nice uninvited and not permitted in the context of a sexual harassment history’.
Her complaint was not initially upheld but after she successfully appeal in November 2018, Mr Payne was suspended and later banned from working for Spire.
Father-of-two Mr Payne, a patron of the London Symphony Orchestra, alleges he lost more than £2.7million in income and that private health insurers will no longer insure him, leaving him unable to find work, according to the Telegraph.
The vascular surgeon claims that Bryan Herty, Spire’s interim director of Southampton, was wrong to overrule a Professional Review Committee hearing in July 2019 which had recommended that his practising privileges should be restored, and that he should return to full practice at Portsmouth, and outpatients at Southampton, so that he would not be in contact with the nurse.
However, Mr Harty told the newspaper he did not accept the review’s recommendations and said Mr Payne’s conduct seriously breached Spire’s values.
Instead, Spire, which runs 39 private hospitals and eight clinics across England, Wales and Scotland, will argue that Mr Payne is not entitled to any damages.
In legal papers lodged with the High Court, Spire said that the nurse had previously complained about Mr Payne’s behaviour.
It is alleged in the court papers that in one incident Mr Payne took a sticky laundry label off his scrubs trousers and tried to put it on her bottom. She responded by telling him not to touch her and became upset, the papers state.
Vascular surgeon Mr Payne wrote to the woman and apologised after Clare Forsyth, a matron, spoke to him about his behaviour.
In paper lodged at the High Court, Spire claims his behaviour culminated in comments made involving a biscuits tin, which are alleged to have been made by the surgeon in the consultants’ rest room at Spire Southampton Hospital in July 2018 (pictured)
The High Court will also hear that in September 2014 the same nurse had been alone in the consultants’ room making coffee when Mr Payne moved close to her, looked at the biscuits she was tidying and said, ‘what a tempting view’, then paused before adding: ‘And biscuits.’
Spire also claims that Mr Payne offered the nurse two tickets for a concert, calling her a ‘hot Romanian girl’, stared at her, encroached on her personal space and spoke to her in a ‘sensual’ voice.
The court will hear that at one stage the nurse herself described his behaviour during the biscuit incident as ‘playful’ and ‘banter’.
Another woman described in a staff interview in 2018 how he would stand close to her, making her feel uncomfortable, and made inappropriate sexual comments.
A third woman claimed that as she crouched on the floor on one occasion Mr Payne had said, ‘while you’re down there’, sprayed her with irrigation fluid and told a male colleague to tell her she had lovely breasts.
The Mail previously reported that Mr Payne had recorded a death rate of 31 per cent among patients who received vascular surgery between 2008 and 2012.
Then based at Portsmouth Hospitals, he carried out only 16 operations in the five-year period, while experts said it would be ‘highly misleading’ to rank surgeons by their death rates as they could partly be down to chance.
Mr Payne has denied behaving inappropriately with any female members of staff during this period. He has been asked to respond to Spire’s latest claims.
A spokesperson for Spire told MailOnline: ‘We are committed to establishing a culture that is free from any form of harassment and inappropriate behaviour and encourage our colleagues to speak up and raise concerns.
‘We have a zero tolerance approach to harassment and will take action when it is brought to our attention.’