{"id":449566,"date":"2026-04-23T08:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T08:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/449566\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T08:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T08:52:12","slug":"dublin-physio-alleged-to-have-lightly-patted-young-female-patient-on-buttock-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/449566\/","title":{"rendered":"Dublin physio alleged to have lightly patted young female patient on buttock \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A Dublin\u2011based male physiotherapist lightly patted or spanked a young female patient on the buttock during a consultation, it was alleged at a fitness-to-practise inquiry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The inquiry was told on Wednesday that the allegations were submitted by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/coru\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/coru\/\">Coru<\/a>, the regulator for health and social care professionals, and relate to a consultation on February 7th, 2023, with a then 21\u2011year\u2011old law student.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The patient, whose identity was anonymised as A, alleged that during the consultation the physiotherapist made a number of inappropriate comments, including referring to her as his \u201cgirlfriend\u201d, saying he was \u201cso proud of my girlfriend\u201d, and asking her: \u201cWhen are we going to third base?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In her evidence, A said this latter comment as a colloquialism for oral sex. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The physiotherapist\u2019s identity has been anonymised to B following a prior ruling of the committee.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A told the inquiry that at the end of the February consultation as she was about to rise from an all\u2011fours \u201cspiderman\u201d position during an exercise, B patted or spanked her left buttock \u201cin the middle of the cheek\u201d for about one second.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIt was more than a pat, less than a spank. I was really shocked,\u201d she told Neasa Bird, barrister for the registrar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A also raised concerns about what she described as \u201ca completely excessive, inordinate\u201d amount of touching of her hips, bum and stomach area during that consultation and a previous appointment on January 9th, 2023. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She said she attended nine consultations with B between September 2022 and February 2023 following an acute injury sustained while hiking in Dingle, Co Kerry. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">After she contacted the clinic\u2019s clinical director on February 23rd about her concerns, B wrote a \u201cheartfelt\u201d letter apologising for any upset caused. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A made a complaint to Coru in January 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The registrar alleges that the allegations amount to poor professional performance and professional misconduct. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">B denies that he inappropriately touched A. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The inquiry resumes on Monday  with evidence from the expert witness, a chartered physiotherapist, for the registrar.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Dublin\u2011based male physiotherapist lightly patted or spanked a young female patient on the buttock during a consultation,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,68704,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":["post-449566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-coru","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116453175971909716","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}