The exterior of Harrods
(Picture: Ed Reeve)A doctor cautioned for stealing a handbag from Harrods and clothes and make-up from Harvey Nichols in Knightsbridge has been suspended for a year.
Dr Suniti Sharma was hauled before a tribunal after a conviction for theft also revealed that she had a 2008 police caution for the department store thefts, which she did not disclose properly to the authorities.
The tribunal heard that Dr Sharma had “used a pair of scissors to assist with removing tags from the items she had stolen” and that staff at Harvey Nichols found security tags left inside the changing room cubicle.
She was also cautioned for one count of theft of a handbag from Harrods on the same day.
The caution came to light in a police check after the Manchester Royal Infirmary worker was convicted in 2019 of stealing a microwave jug, moth stop bags, and travel bags among other items worth £104 from a Cheshire Lakeland.
However, some details of the case were redacted from the public after the tribunal was heard part in private.
The tribunal found the offending was “not motivated by hope of gain or any other illicit purpose,” and that if the public was “fully informed of all the salient facts in this case”, their trust in the profession would not be undermined.
In a ruling, the tribunal stated: “The Tribunal determined that Dr Sharma’s failure to notify her regulator of a police caution undermined public confidence in the medical profession and that this was so serious as to amount to misconduct.
“The Tribunal considered that Dr Sharma’s conviction on 28 May 2019 at Stockport Magistrates’ Court for theft is evidence of dishonesty, a breach of a fundamental tenet of the profession and also has potential to bring the medical profession into disrepute”.
In mitigation, Dr Sharma told the panel she was “truly sorry”, that she was “more ashamed and humiliated than anyone can say” and she had not intended to mislead the medical regulator.
The tribunal concluded that a one-year suspension therefore “was the appropriate and proportionate sanction”.
