Daily Mail
May 14, 2014
A thieving GP stole £130 from a mother’s purse after she left the consulting room to attend to her sick baby son.
Kelly Wissenden, 29, caught family doctor Nurpal Mittal rifling through the handbag she had left with her son’s buggy in the office.
The physician, 33, now faces being struck off the medical register after a jury found her guilty of theft.
She is also likely to receive a large fine for ‘breaching the sacred trust between doctor and patient’, the court heard.
Judge James O’Mahony told Mittal: ‘A patient has the right to expect that the last person in the world who would steal from them was a doctor.
‘I want to know why on earth you could have done this.’
Miss Wissenden took her nine-month-old son Zaio Headley, who had an upset stomach, to White Cliffs Medical Centre in Dover on June 19 last year.
During her appointment, the mother of two was asked to take Zaio to a baby changing room in the surgery to take a specimen sample for tests. But when she returned to the GP’s office, she found Mittal going through her bag.
Prosecutor Andrew Forsyth told the court: ‘Miss Wissenden described seeing Dr Mittal fiddling round near the change bag and the buggy, looking very flustered.’ He added: ‘She thought it strange at the time but didn’t say anything.’
Cross-channel ferry stewardess Miss Wissenden had £130 cash in her purse, which she had withdrawn earlier that day to pay for a car repair.
But she said she realised the money was missing only after she had left the surgery.