A residential child care worker from Wrexham has been removed from the Register of Social Care Workers after a Social Care Wales hearing found his fitness to practise was currently impaired because of serious misconduct.
The panel was told that between November 2019 and March 2020, Thomas Cross exchanged separate, inappropriate, sexually-motivated messages and calls with two people, in which he discussed his fantasies about having sex with a child.
Additionally, the panel was told that Mr Cross lied about the circumstances of a 2011 conviction for drink driving to his employer in May 2018 and during his application to register with Social Care Wales in January 2019.
Having heard the evidence, the panel decided that Mr Cross’s fitness to practise was currently impaired because of serious misconduct.
Explaining its decision, the panel said: “Mr Cross has clearly breached one of the core principles of the social care profession.
The panel continued: “The seriously inappropriate attitudes to sexual boundaries which he expressed, coupled with dishonesty, are inherently very difficult things to remedy.
“There is no evidence that Mr Cross has recognised the problem and taken any steps to do anything about it. There is no basis for us to have any confidence that the impairment of his fitness to practice which was evident at the time of the charges has been remedied.”
The panel decided to remove Mr Cross from the Register, saying: “Although there is no evidence that Mr Cross carried out his fantasies, the views he expressed give rise to significant future risk. We have assessed this as being a high-risk case.”
The panel continued: “Given the deep-seated, attitudinal nature of the impairment, his lack of insight and lack of motivation to remediate (which is signalled by the fact that he has not participated in this hearing), we can have no confidence that the position will have improved after even the maximum suspension period.
“We have decided that it is necessary to impose a Removal Order. This is the appropriate order because of the high level of the risk.”
Mr Cross was not present at the two-day hearing, which was held last week over Zoom.