North Wales carer struck off for sexual texts about girls

Messages sent by Mr Cross detailed his fantasies and were passed to the police

A residential child care worker from Wrexham has been struck off after sending sexual texts about children.

Thomas Cross was removed from the Register of Social Care Workers after a hearing found him guilty of serious misconduct.

Between November 2019 and March 2020 Mr Cross shared texts and calls in which he fantasised about sex with a child.

Mr Cross, 28, who worked at a home for vulnerable boys, did not attend the two-day hearing.

The Social Care Wales panel was told that Mr Cross also lied about the circumstances of a 2011 conviction for drink driving to his employer in May 2018, and during his application to register with Social Care Wales in January 2019.

Explaining its decision, the panel said Mr Cross had clearly breached one of the "core principles of the social care profession".

"The seriously inappropriate attitudes to sexual boundaries which he expressed, coupled with dishonesty, are inherently very difficult things to remedy," found the panel.

'Significant risk'

They added that there was no evidence that Mr Cross had recognised the problem or taken any steps to do anything about it.

"There is no basis for us to have any confidence that the impairment of his fitness to practise which was evident at the time of the charges has been remedied," said the panel.

"Although there is no evidence that Mr Cross carried out his fantasies, the views he expressed give rise to significant future risk. We have assessed this as being a high-risk case.

"Given the deep-seated, attitudinal nature of the impairment, his lack of insight and lack of motivation to remediate (which is signalled by the fact that he has not participated in this hearing), we can have no confidence that the position will have improved after even the maximum suspension period."

"We have decided that it is necessary to impose a Removal Order. This is the appropriate order because of the high level of the risk."