CHIROPRACTOR Jan Blankenstein, who has been struck off the register for kissing a patient, has defended his actions by claiming he acted out of sympathy.

Mr Blankenstein, who has been a chiropractor for more than 34 years, kissed the patient in her 60s during a session in August last year.

Following a public hearing into Mr Blankenstein’s conduct, the General Chiropractic Council ruled that his behaviour was in breach of professional standards, and he is currently under suspension before being removed from the register formally on October 29.

Mr Blankenstein, who ran the Swindon Chiropractic Clinic, in Stratton, has said he will not appeal the decision and said he had kissed the patient out of “care and concern.”

“This happened more than a year ago,” he said. “She was not a new patient and had been coming to see me for more than 18 months.

“I did it out of a sense of sympathy, empathy, care and concern. For 30 years this practice has been based on care and concern and looking after our patients.

“She did not seem at all distressed, and the first I knew about it was her husband coming to see me a few days later.”

A hearing at the time into a potential interim suspension found that Mr Blankenstein was not an immediate danger and allowed him to continue practising.

“By the time a substantive case was put together a year later I was facing the added allegation that it was sexually motivated,” said Mr Blankenstein.

“Bluntly, it was not. This was a woman in her 60s who had come in for a session with her husband sitting in the waiting room. I had been given a tale of woe, and it was just as a parent would say to a child, ‘let me kiss that better.’ “By the time of the hearing I had got together a huge bundle of letters of support from my patients.

“They have been 100 per cent supportive of me throughout the process without exception, as have my colleagues.

“I will always argue the allegation it was sexually motivated is an absurd suggestion.

“Everybody in the profession thought I would be given an admonishment, which would be a considerable tarnish on the record but allow me to keep practising.”

Mr Blankenstein, a former president of the Rotary Club of Swindon, who also sat on the Charity Ball committee, said he had planned to retire next year anyway with a replacement already lined up, and there will be no change in service at the clinic.

“The clinic will continue,” he said. “I can no longer function as a chiropractor so I do not know the way forward for me, but the clinic will continue with the same ethos.

“I accept the judgement that has been handed down because I have to.

“At no time have I denied that I kissed her, but it is a totally disproportionate sanction.

“I apologise most sincerely to my patients and my colleagues for doing this to them.

“If this hadn’t happened I would have been hanging up my gloves next year anyway.”

A spokesman for the General Chiropractic Council said: “Mr Blankenstein admitted that he kissed a female patient during treatment at the Swindon Chiropractic Centre without her consent.

“The kiss was between the base of the neck and the point of the shoulder.

“The PCC concluded that such a kiss does not conform to any social convention, was inherently sexual and also sexually motivated.

“It also noted that the patient found the kiss to be disturbing and distressing, and felt ‘dirty’ as a result of what had happened.

“It found that Mr. Blankenstein’s behaviour was a particularly serious departure from acceptable standards, and that he displayed a reckless disregard of his professional obligations to maintain clear sexual boundaries with patients and treat them with respect.

“The committee did not accept that he was now unlikely to behave in a similar way again.”