A NURSE caught up in a paedophile hunter stung and failed to disclose this to his employers has been struck off.

Imran Bhatti, of Corporation Road, Newport, sent sexual messages to what he thought was a 10-year-old schoolgirl on an online chatroom while himself posing as a 19-year-old in July, 2013.

In April 2015, the 39-year-old admitted in a police interview to engaging in a conversation of a sexual nature with the child, which was a fake profile.

Bhatti, who had been working at Monmouth’s Gibraltar Care Village at the time, pleaded guilty to the single charge and was due to be sentenced and placed on the sex offenders register at Newport Crown Court in December, 2015.

However both the conviction and the registration was overturned as Bhatti had applied to vacate his earlier guilty plea.

Judge Michael Fitton had also ruled that no law had been broken because the child involved in the case was not real.

Bhatti was suspended from nursing for 18 months but failed to disclose this to his next employers, Danygraig Nursing Home in Newport.

He worked at the nursery from July until August last year before his interim suspension was uncovered by a third party audit.

Bhatti was subsequently brought in front of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) last month, where he faced seven charges three focused on the original court case and four on Bhatti’s dishonesty over his suspension.

Bhatti told the nursing watchdog stated that his behaviour on the chatroom was due to “immaturity, work-related stress and lack of sleep”, but no evidence of this was produced.

He told the NMC: “If one of my colleagues acted in the same way as me I would feel disgusted and below the standards as a nurse.”

In response to Bhatti claiming to have “matured” in the two years since his court appearance, the panel said he had shown a “stunning lack of insight” and “portrayed himself as the victim.”

The NMC described Bhatti’s actions as“significant departures” from the expected standards.

A statement read: “The panel was of the view that the public would be appalled to hear of a registered nurse engaging in inappropriate sexually motivated activity with children (real or fictitious), and dishonestly concealing an NMC interim suspension order from his employer.

“Although he acknowledges his misconduct and apologises, he has not demonstrated sufficient insight into the potential impact of his misconduct on children, his employers, colleagues, patients, or the reputation of the profession.

“This was behaviour that was fundamentally incompatible with his remaining on the register.”