James Kirkwood
Introduction
James Kirkwood is a radiographer who was registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) under registration number RA37573. On 16 April 2026, a panel of the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service (HCPTS) ordered him struck off the register at a substantive hearing, having found serious misconduct involving racist and sexual comments, obscene material and inappropriate physical conduct towards colleagues, with no meaningful insight and a high risk of repetition. An interim suspension of 18 months had been imposed at an interim-orders hearing on 13 April 2026, covering the appeal period.
Background Information
The published record identifies Kirkwood as a radiographer holding HCPC registration RA37573. The allegations in his case concerned conduct towards staff rather than patients — a longstanding pattern of racist and sexual comments, obscene images, unwanted touching and other inappropriate conduct towards colleagues. The determination window does not name his employer or describe his career, and this page does not guess at either. MedicWatch — an independent record service that aggregates publicly published decisions of UK healthcare regulators and does not editorialise their findings — carries his case, added to its index on 5 May 2026, and directs readers to the official HCPC register for current registration details.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Regulatory findings, not a criminal case. The findings below come from an HCPTS panel applying the civil standard — the balance of probabilities. They are regulator findings, not criminal convictions, and no criminal proceedings form part of this case.
The allegations concerned a longstanding pattern of racist and sexual comments, obscene images, unwanted touching and other inappropriate conduct towards staff. The panel found the conduct amounted to serious misconduct. The public window of the determination summarises the findings at headline level — the pattern, its targets, and its duration — without reproducing the charge-by-charge particulars, and this page reports no more than that window supports.
On sanction, the panel found no meaningful accountability or insight and assessed a high risk of repetition. It concluded that striking off was necessary and proportionate to protect colleagues and the public. Three days earlier, at an interim-orders hearing on 13 April 2026, a panel had already imposed an interim suspension as a precautionary restriction — expressly not a finding of fault — and that interim suspension was made subject to 18 months across the appeal period. The determination itself does not reproduce the charge-by-charge particulars in its public window, and this page reports no more than that window supports.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The published record contains no press coverage of the hearing and no public statements from Kirkwood or any other party. The concrete consequences are the striking-off direction of 16 April 2026 and the 18-month interim suspension. For colleagues, the panel’s finding — that the conduct was a longstanding pattern directed at staff, not a single incident — is the operative fact: it locates the harm inside the workplace, among the people who had to work alongside him.
Current Status
Kirkwood was struck off the HCPC register by the panel’s decision of 16 April 2026, with an interim suspension of 18 months running during the appeal period. His MedicWatch profile records erasure as his most recent published outcome and directs readers to the official HCPC register for his current position, including whether any appeal was pursued.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Striking off ended Kirkwood’s registration and his ability to work as a radiographer in the UK unless a future restoration application succeeds. The case sits in a category regulators treat with particular severity: misconduct whose victims are colleagues. A registrant’s patients are, in the regulatory model, protected by the register itself; colleagues are entitled to the same protection from the person next to them in the workplace, and a pattern of racist and sexual comments, obscene material and unwanted touching defeats that entitlement directly. The panel’s route to the top sanction — no meaningful insight, high repetition risk, protection of colleagues and public — follows the standard logic of UK fitness-to-practise law to its conclusion. Beyond the determination, the published record contains no information about his circumstances since the decision.