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The Daily Telegraph, London, 19 November 1998
Dentist 'spanked girl trainee in exam test'
By Neil Tweedie
A DENTIST put a trainee assistant across his knee, pulled down her knickers, and made her shout out the answers to exam questions while slapping her bottom, a disciplinary hearing was told yesterday.
James Aukett, 49, a former Olympic athlete and athletics coach, appeared before a committee of the General Dental Council accused of serious professional misconduct in behaving indecently with the 19-year-old woman at a clinic in Brighton.
"Every time the young woman gave the wrong answer, he smacked her harder and shouted his questions more loudly," said Miss Jane Sullivan, representing the complainant.
The victim, described as Miss A to preserve her anonymity, complained to another dentist about the matter, but he took no action at her request, and she did not lodge a formal complaint until years later.
Mr Aukett, of Seaford, Sussex, formerly a district dentist with Brighton Health Authority and director of dental services for the South Downs NHS Trust, denies the allegation.
He also denies making inappropriate remarks to four female members of staff, employed by South Downs Health NHS Trust, on various occasions between 1994 and 1996, and making a false declaration on his wife's application form for the same dental exam.
The committee heard that the alleged assault happened a month before the woman resat her National Dental Surgery Assistant exam.
He had first told her that she would have to take off an item of clothing for every three questions answered incorrectly on a questionnaire.
Giving evidence, Miss A said she had felt "totally embarrassed and humiliated" as she dressed herself in front of him. She drove away from work in tears and told her mother about the assault.
Miss A's mother, known as Mrs A, told the hearing that she asked her daughter why she had not tried to escape. Her daughter replied: "Oh mum, I just couldn't. He was much stronger than me."
The assault allegedly took place in April 1991 at the Morley Street Clinic in Brighton.
The woman passed the exam, left her job in 1994, and made a complaint about the incident in 1996. She is now 26 and pregnant with her second child.
Explaining her delay in making a complaint, she said: "He was a person in authority. I thought everybody was going to believe him and not me."
Mr Aukett was alleged to have subjected other female staff to sexual innuendo.
A 22-year-old dental assistant, referred to as Miss One, described how during Thursday afternoon tutorials to Mr Aukett made his students recite a rhyme using the initial letters of the olfactory and ocular nerves to help them remember them. It went: "oh, oh, oh, to touch and feel a virgin".
The hearing continues.
The Daily Telegraph, London, 20 November 1998
Dentist 'horrified by spanking claim'
By Daily Telegraph Correspondent
A DENTIST accused of spanking a trainee assistant on her bare bottom said yesterday that he reacted with "sheer horror" when he learned of the allegation.
James Aukett, 49, is said to have put the teenager over his knee, pulled down her knickers and tights and spanked her when she could not answer questions.
The former director of dental services the South Downs NHS Trust told a disciplinary committee that he knew nothing of the claims until he received a letter in October 1996 -- five years after the alleged assault.
"It is physically sickening," he said. "You feel the blood drain from you. You can't believe what you are reading. It's a nightmare."
The dentist claimed that if such an attack had taken place other people at the clinic would have heard. Mr Aukett, a former Olympic athlete, said that, instead of avoiding him at work, the assistant, then aged 19, continued regularly to attend exercise classes he gave.
"I would have thought that, if she had suffered this attack, there are hundreds of other exercise classes. She doesn't have to stand and laugh at my shoulder for the next three years, as she did."
Mr Aukett, of South Way, Seaford, East Sussex, admitted telling his young female workforce that they would have to remove an item of clothing if they got answers wrong during revision sessions. But he added: "We were joking amongst ourselves."
The dentist, who is accused of serious professional misconduct, denies assaulting the teenager and making inappropriate remarks to four other female staff members.
The hearing continues.
The Daily Telegraph, London, 21 November 1998
Tears as dentist cleared of spanking teenager
By Michael Smith
A DENTIST accused of spanking the bare bottom of a 19-year-old trainee dental assistant wept yesterday after the professional conduct committee of the General Dental Council cleared him of the allegations.
The assistant, identified only as Miss A, alleged that James Aukett, 49, of Seaford, East Sussex, pulled down her knickers and put her across his knee while testing her knowledge of dentistry.
She claimed that Mr Aukett had told her she would have to take off one item of clothing for every three questions she got wrong, and slapped her bottom for each mistake.
Miss A, who is now 26 and expecting her second child, added that she did not make a complaint against him at the time of the alleged incident, in April 1991, for fear of losing her job.
She said: "He was a person in authority. I thought everyone was going to believe him and not me."
But the committee heard that after the alleged incident she continued regularly to attend the fitness classes run by Mr Aukett, a former Olympic athlete, standing as close to him as possible.
Miss A also dressed in stockings and high heels as a birthday surprise for him, kissing him on the cheek before presenting him with a cake, the committee heard.
Mr Aukett, a former director of dental services for the South Downs Health NHS Trust, was also cleared of making inappropriate comments filled with sexual innuendo to two other female members of staff.
But the dentist, who works for a practice in Lewes, West Sussex, was found to have made an "inappropriate" comment to one other dental assistant.
He admitted that he had threatened that she would have to remove an item of clothing if she could not correctly answer revision questions.
He also made a lewd sexual comment in relation to her boyfriend.
But he told the committee that these were jokes and "that was the tone and the atmosphere of the department at the time".
Mr Aukett was also found to have made a false declaration on his wife's application form for the National Examining Board for Dental Surgery Assistants. He wrongly certified that she had worked full-time as a dental assistant for more than two years.
But the committee ruled that neither of these two offences constituted serious professional misconduct. Mr Aukett buried his head in his hands and wept with relief at the verdict.
He refused to make any comment afterwards. But during the four-day hearing he had spoken of his "sheer horror" when he learned of the allegations.
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