Further ban for doctor who claimed to be psychic

Jan 8 2012 by James Moore, Sunday Sun

A PSYCHOLOGIST who claimed to be psychic and asked a patient if he could attend the birth of her twins has been suspended for a second year.

Wilhelmus Draper developed an unhealthy relationship with the woman during regression therapy while working for the Durham County NHS Trust.

He was found guilty of a string of charges and suspended for a year in January 2011.

At the same hearing he was cleared of calling the woman a witch and telling her she had been buried alive in a pyramid as a five-year-old girl in a former life.

The Health Professions Council (HPC) have now extended his ban by 12 months after hearing he was no working in the UK any longer.

Draper did not attend a brief review hearing in Kennington, south London, and told the HPC he was effectively retired.

Panel chair Jacki Pearce said: “The registrant has shown no insight or understanding of his failings and there is no reason to believe that, in similar circumstances, they would not be repeated.”

At the original hearing, Draper was cleared of telling the patient she was a ‘witch’ and that she had been ‘sacrificed’ on an altar by ‘being cut up’.

Ms Pearce said the context in which the term ‘witch’ was used was in the historical meaning of ‘psychic’.

Draper was found guilty of not referring the woman, known as Patient A, for specialist treatment, failing to provide appropriate treatment and failing to inform the relevant authorities after the patient confessed being repeatedly aggressive towards her children.

The psychologist, who worked for the Trust between August 1994 and 2005, failed to maintain adequate case files.