A nurse who said he was a sex addict has agreed to be deregistered after making inappropriate remarks to colleagues and an undercover officer posing as a teenage girl online.
James Ivor Horton was a registered nurse at Orange Hospital in western NSW in 2020 and 2021 when the unprofessional comments and criminal conduct took place.
Details of his misconduct emerged on Friday after the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal struck the 36-year-old off the register of nurses for two years and barred him from providing health services during that time.
Horton told a fellow nurse that she looked “stunning” via Facebook Messenger in early 2020, according to the tribunal.
He then told her in person that he wanted sex but not a relationship with her.
“I have different values to other people and I want to take things further,” Horton said.
In mid-2021, he said he wanted to have a drink with another female nurse, telling her he would like to learn “exactly how naughty” she was.
“I would like to see you dancing to the song Wicked Games with a black thong and garter belt,” Horton told her in a message.
In late 2021, he messaged a third nursing colleague he met at a function that he would have liked to go back to her house for drinks.
The woman found the comments suggestive and inappropriate, the tribunal said.
In December 2021, Horton began chatting online with an undercover police officer posing as a 14-year-old girl.
After hearing the purported teen’s age, he said it was “unfortunate” she wasn’t older because then he would be able to treat her “like a princess”.
“If you were 16… I’d love to bend you over in your netball uniform,” he wrote.
“Would definitely have you make some noises.”
After further describing the sexual activity he wanted, Horton said he wanted to stop chatting as it was inappropriate due to her age.
Despite this, he continued to talk with the purported teen over Skype.
Police searched his home in March 2022, hitting him with a charge of using a carriage service to send indecent material to a person aged under 16.
Horton told police he was an “undiagnosed sex addict” and it was dangerous for him to chat online due to the number of underage girls.
He pleaded guilty and was eventually convicted of the charge but managed to reduce his sentence on a successful appeal to the District Court.
In February 2023, he was released under conditions that he be of good behaviour for three years and pay $1000 in security.
Horton admitted to the hospital’s manager that he had breached professional guidelines, saying his sex addiction had clouded his ethical judgement.
The tribunal found all the complaints against Horton were proven before removing him from the register of nurses.
The criminal charge was serious and his other conduct was at odds with the “integrity, trustworthiness and high moral and ethical values” the community expected of nurses, it said.
Support is available from 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) and National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028.
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