A nurse had sex with a patient after romancing her over a meal at a tapas restaurant while she was being treated for a mental breakdown, a tribunal has today heard.

Kenneth Ngobele quizzed the woman, a manic depressive, about her sexual history and her attitude to Nigerian men, it is alleged.

Ngobele later took the woman to a La Tasca restaurant and told her ‘You know I want to f*** you’, the Nursing and Midwifery Council was told.

‘Patient A’ met Ngobele while she was being treated at Basildon Hospital in Essex following a mental breakdown.

The vulnerable woman initially kept the alleged affair secret but eventually revealed all to health workers at a clinic.

Ngobele was working as a deputy charge nurse at the time of the allegations in 2009.

It is claimed he met up with the woman after she was discharged from the hospital and twice visited her home for sex.

He also threatened to release confidential information about the woman to her employer unless she met with him, the panel heard.

In a statement, Patient A said: ‘Kenneth questioned my quite heavily about my sexuality, the number of sexual partners I had had, whether they were relationships, whether I had introduced them to friends and family or whether they were one-night stands.

‘As we were walking, he asked me what kind of men I liked, questioned my sexual preferences and was being quite flirty.

‘I was in a really bad way and suicidal at the time.

‘My stay at the hospital was two nights. It looked to me as if Kenneth was avoiding work as much as possible and then trying to come onto me.

‘Kenneth came into the female-only television room to come and sit with me.

‘Kenneth said, “I’m a nurse, I can go anywhere”.

‘Kenneth stated that he had been studying me and he had noticed that I interacted with men very well.

‘I remember feeling really freaked out by that statement.’

Just as Patient A was due to be discharged, Ngobele told her she would no longer be his patient and they could meet safely, she claims.
He also wrote down his phone number in her diary.

Kenneth Ngobele quizzed the woman about her sexual history and her attitude to Nigerian men, it is alleged. Ngobele later took the woman to a La Tasca restaurant and told her ‘You know I want to f*** you’, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (pictured) was told

‘He was staring at my body in a really sexual way,’ added Patient A. ‘Kenneth said that as soon as I get out, he wanted me to text him.’

When they met up for the first time, Patient A said she was feeling ‘really manic’.

‘One way it expresses itself is I become promiscuous’, she explained.
‘I knew that sex was on the cards.’

Describing their meeting at La Tasca on June 14, she said: ‘Kenneth paid for everything. I remember him saying, “You owe me” and said it in a sexually aggressive way.

‘As soon as the door closed, it became really aggressive.’

The pair then met up again on July 7 and again had sex but Patient A then began refusing to answer his calls.

During an internal interview with trust bosses, Ngobele at first admitted some of the allegations.

But soon ‘his assertions began to shift, with him creating an alternative scenario’, the panel was told.

Tope Adeyemi, for the NMC, said: ‘It is submitted that all of the registrant’s conduct was sexually motivated and constitutes a gross breach of his privileged position.’

Ngobele was sacked following the investigation. He denies all the charges he faces at the NMC hearing.

If found guilty of misconduct he could be kicked out of the profession.

The hearing continues.