A doctor sexually assaulted a female colleague while making her feel trapped at his home, a tribunal has heard.
Dr Astrit Rrukaj invited his colleague back to his house, where he tried to feed her pieces of mango, pressured her to drink vodka and played arousing music on his laptop.
He proceeded to stick his tongue in her ear and mouth and allegedly rubbed his groin against her and placed his hand underneath her clothes.
The Albanian doctor then insisted on driving her towards her home and assaulted her in the street as she tried to call a friend for help.
Dr Rrukaj, who is now 41, was working on the old age in-patient unit at St George’s Hospital in Stafford when he asked a colleague to come home with him.
The woman, named only as Ms A for legal reasons, told a medical practitioners tribunal Dr Rrukaj became drunk shortly after taking her to a property where he was house-sitting at 6.30pm on August 11, 2021.
Repeatedly offering her alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, the doctor tried to feed her pieces of mango from his own fork, despite her saying she didn’t like the fruit.
In a statement to police, Ms A said: ‘He kept saying, “You haven’t had your gin”. He said, “Try this, it’s really nice.” “This is good”.
Dr Astrit Rrukaj (pictured) has been struck off after a tribunal found he assaulted a vulnerable colleague on several occasions at his home
‘He said, “We can drink what we like. This isn’t my house but we can drink what we like and help yourself.”’
But the evening started to take a turn for the worse after the adult psychiatry specialist began to play music of a ‘sexual nature’ and, by his own admission, asked her whether he should play the track ‘sex on the beach’.
He then tried to place his arms around her back and dance with her before she wriggled out of his grasp. When he led her upstairs towards his bedroom and suggested she may like to spend the night with him, she refused.
The tribunal heard that, during the course of the evening, Dr Rrukaj kissed and placed his tongue on the woman’s face and ear and put his hand under her jumper.
Despite her asking to go home, the doctor insisted Ms A share a salad he had prepared for dinner and that she have a shot of vodka.
Dr Rrukaj also handed her a glass of water which she claimed ‘tasted funny’ and shortly afterwards she began to feel sick and dizzy, although no evidence was found that the drink had been spiked.
He then proceeded to fondle her again before ‘grabbing and squeezing’ her breast and sticking his hand up her top.
When she pushed him away and pleaded with him to ‘please stop’, he ignored her and lifted her off the ground in an embrace so she was unable to get away.
By 9.41pm Ms A sent a message to a friend reading ‘this is the weirdest night of my life’ along with an emoji of an exploding head.
Despite insisting she would walk home, Dr Rrukaj told Ms A he would drive her to her house. Ms A told the tribunal that the doctor then came up behind as she was putting on her shoes by the front door and ‘started rubbing his groin against her backside’, claims which Dr Rrukaj denied.
The doctor drove Ms A back to where he picked her up earlier, where she sent a further message to her friend urging him to ‘call me and help’ and another at 10.18pm reading ‘quick please’.
She then stumbled in some bushes in the dark, before the doctor grabbed her and assaulted her again.
After getting into her friend’s car, Ms A allegedly broke down and ‘cried hysterically’ and insisted she had not drunk enough alcohol to become intoxicated.
Ms A was taken by her friend to A&E at Stoke Hospital. A toxicological analysis of her blood taken around seven hours after the incident found no evidence she was drunk, but in a picture shown to the tribunal taken after midnight on August 14 Ms A’s face was ‘puffy, reddened and swollen’.
In his own oral submission, Dr Rrukaj denied he had assaulted Ms A at any point during the night or that he was ‘sexually aroused’. He admitted he had kissed his colleague on the cheek an unspecified number of times.
Contrary to Ms A’s evidence she had refused to stay the night with him, Dr Rrukaj insisted the pair had agreed to ‘spend the night under the same roof’, either at his temporary home or her house.
He said that when they were both walking outside, Ms A had agreed to walk hand-in-hand as a ‘pretend couple’.
On his own account, Dr Rrukaj was lonely and wanted a friendship with Ms A, albeit not romantically or sexually.
The doctor further alleged that Ms A’s friend was giving her instructions to ‘groom’ him while the two were out walking.
Dismissing Dr Rrukaj’s assertions that his actions were all consensual, the tribunal found his behaviour was ‘sexually motivated’ and found all allegations against the doctor proved.
The General Medical Council, which regulates doctors, submitted that the offences were committed against ‘a junior colleague in circumstances where she was particularly vulnerable, by virtue of the locations and timing of the index incidents, her age and her level of intoxication’.
It added that Dr Rrukaj had completely denied the facts and had shown no evidence of remediation.
Dr Rrukaj was working as a ward doctor at St George’s Hospital in Stafford (pictured) when he met Ms A and invited her back to his house
Kevin McMerney, defending Dr Rrukaj, said there was no risk of him reoffending and pointed to his ‘unblemished work record and personal life’.
He said the incident was an ‘unusual case’ and a ‘one-off’ and was unlikely to be repeated.
The tribunal found that Dr Rrukaj had abused his position of seniority over Ms A and caused her to feel trapped in his home.
‘Although the events occurred outside of the workplace, Ms A was in a vulnerable position, considering herself to be trapped within Dr Rrukaj’s home’, the report said.
‘She was the focus of an escalating course of conduct in Dr Rrukaj’s home, and later on a public path, which made her feel increasingly uncomfortable, such that not only did she want to escape, she sought the help of a friend to extricate her from the situation she found herself in.’
Barring Dr Rrukaj indefinitely from the profession, it concluded: ‘Dr Rrukaj’s misconduct was so serious that members of the public would be appalled to learn that a doctor who sexually assaulted a vulnerable colleague, albeit in a social environment, were to be allowed to remain on the medical register.
‘This was particularly so where he had sought to blame others, to deflect from his own responsibility.’
