By Elham Asaad Buaras
A dentist from Slough, Berkshire, was suspended for four months over an online post that called for “sewers of towns” to be “cleansed” of Muslims.
Ronald Pate posted twice online on May 23, 2017, the day after the Manchester bomb attack and again on May 25.
Pate, a dentist since 1981, posted: “Continue with this appeasing woolly approach and soon we will see Sharia Law recognised, a majority of Muslim MP’s [sic] and say goodbye to the country” and “its time these sewers of towns were cleansed”.
The General Dental Council (GDC) found him guilty of serious professional misconduct last month over the “religiously offensive” and “inappropriate” posts.
Pate accepted he may have written the posts “in haste and anger” but claimed he was referring to terrorists, not all Muslims.
However, the General Dental Council Professional Conduct Committee said it “did not accept” he was solely referring to terrorists.
It also ruled that one post by Pate on the GDPUK site, a website for “dental opinion and information”, “would likely have been read” as a call for ethnic cleansing.
The committee said it “considered that the potential for hostility towards the Muslim population to be inflamed is increased by using this type of language”.
Pate last registered as working at the Langley Dental Clinic and Implant Centre in Slough, also argued the posts were written in a private message thread, inaccessible to the public.
However, the General Dental Council said forum has 10,000 users including the wider public. Pate told the hearing he was now retired, and the industry body would be unable to prevent him from making similar comments in the future.
He said he would not make the same comments again, particularly the “sewers of towns” remark, and would not make them in a public place or around patients.
The GDC said it believed there was a “high risk” the behaviour would be repeated because of Pate’s “cavalier attitude” towards the regulator.
It added that the language used “was religiously offensive and no reasonable person would find the language appropriate.”
