A hospice fundraiser has been allowed to continue working in social care – despite discussing pornography and sex acts with a vulnerable care home resident.
Ewen MacBean’s “serious breaches of professional boundaries” also included changing in the same swimming pool cubicle as the male patient, who colleagues said was “infatuated with him”.
In his own time and unconnected to his career, the care home support worker from Inverness took part in numerous fundraising events for the Highland Hospice.
But details brought forward by the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) appear to show a different side to Mr MacBean’s activities.
While working at an unnamed care home between August 2014 and January 2016, Mr MacBean’s behaviour towards one resident, known as “AA”, was deemed “inappropriate” by the SSSC.
The hearing found that he “discussed pornographic websites with service user AA and “communicated with service user AA on online dating websites”.
The hearing also stated that he had discussions with AA about sex acts and sexuality which were not part of AA’s agreed care plan and “changed in the same cubicle as AA” at a swimming pool.
AA’s emotional attachment towards Mr MacBean was “described variously by staff as being obsessive, infatuation and fixation”.
The panel found that in light of this, Mr MacBean’s behaviour “had an emotional impact on AA” and involved a “serious breach of professional boundaries”.
They decided to give a warning for a period of four years, instead of striking Mr MacBean off.
Mr MacBean had “showed some insight and regret” for his actions, and the council accepted that his “risk to members of the public is low”.
In May 2014, he raised thousands of pounds for the organisation Highland Ice Centre after being crowned the winner of amateur competition, Strictly Inverness 2014.
Video clips, shared by the charity, show Mr MacBean dancing with a female to a rendition of Roxanne – similar to the routine from the musical, Moulin Rouge.
And raunchy images on Mr MacBean’s Facebook account show him raising awareness for testicular cancer in an almost completely naked selfie – with just a sock to cover his modesty.
A spokeswoman at the Highland Hospice stressed that Mr MacBean was never employed by them.
She added: “In the past he has raised money for the hospice and had helped out at times but he has never been employed by us.”
She said that the hospice would have conducted a disclosure check before this but said they were not aware of the SSSC allegations against Mr MacBean.
Mr MacBean did not respond to requests for comment.