Andrew Cassels
Introduction
Andrew Cassels is a UK nurse who was suspended from the nursing register for six months on 26 August 2026, after a Nursing and Midwifery Council Fitness to Practise Committee found his conviction for sexually assaulting a colleague required a finding of impairment to uphold public confidence and professional standards — while accepting evidence of reflection and training and assessing his risk of repetition as low .
Background Information
Cassels was convicted at Hamilton Sheriff Court on 18 January 2024 of sexually assaulting a colleague on 12 November 2019, by handling and seizing her clothed buttocks. Before the NMC, the conviction charge was proved by admission and the conviction record — the assault itself was a matter for the criminal court, and the panel’s task was what the conviction meant for his registration .
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Adjudicated (criminal + regulatory). The conviction is a sheriff court record; the impairment finding is the NMC panel’s conclusion on the civil standard.
The panel found impairment on public-interest grounds — public confidence in the profession and professional standards — and found no basis for public-protection impairment: no evidence of unwarranted risk to patients, no deep-seated attitudinal concerns. The NMC asked for a striking-off order; the panel rejected that as disproportionate and imposed six months’ suspension with a review. A separate 18-month interim suspension applies in the public interest during the appeal period; if no appeal is made, the substantive suspension replaces it 28 days after the written decision is sent .
The mitigation the panel recorded was substantial: the assault was an isolated incident with no evidence the behaviour occurred more than once; Cassels had practised safely and effectively without restriction or any concerns raised between 2019 and 2023; he had undertaken relevant training courses, including courses specific to his conviction; he had completed several reflective statements; and there had been no recurrence. The panel weighed a colleague-on-colleague sexual assault proved in court, the profession’s public-confidence stake in such a conviction, and four years of unblemished practice either side of it — and settled on a six-month suspension with review rather than the erasure the regulator sought .
Public Reaction and Consequences
The consequence is the six-month suspension and a register record permanently linking his name to a sexual-assault conviction. The case is recorded in MedicWatch’s listing of nurses suspended in 2026 .
The victim is not named in the published record, and nothing in the fetched record carries any employer statement or public comment from Cassels beyond the determination. What the record does fix is the geography of the case: a Scottish sheriff court conviction arising from a 2019 workplace assault, reaching the nursing regulator’s list more than two years after the conviction date and seven after the incident — the gap between a criminal sentence and a register sanction being its own feature of how these cases mature .
Current Status
Cassels is a suspended nurse under a six-month order imposed on 26 August 2026, with a review before it expires, subject to the appeal-period mechanics described above. The conviction is permanent; what the review will test is whether the reflection and training the panel accepted has matured into the insight that keeps the public-confidence finding from deepening .
The panel’s structure matters for what comes next: with public protection found unimpaired and repetition risk assessed as low, the case turns on confidence — which is the limb most responsive to sustained, evidenced remediation .
Impact on Their Career/Life
A sexual-assault conviction is one of the few findings that follows a nurse across every registration check regardless of sanction, because the conviction itself never leaves the record. The panel’s decision documents the regulatory settlement of that fact: the NMC argued the conviction ended a nursing career; the panel answered that the man who committed it in 2019 had then practised four unblemished years, trained specifically on the issue, and reflected in writing — and that proportion is part of what public confidence actually requires. Six months suspended, on public-interest grounds only, is the narrowest finding that still registers disapproval; it also leaves Cassels one review away from the argument that the impairment itself has resolved .