Laurence Oakden
Introduction
Laurence Oakden is a former NHS physiotherapist who was struck off by the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service (HCPTS) in September 2026 after being convicted of making indecent photographs of a child and of a series of drug offences, including possessing class A drugs with intent to supply. Oakden, who worked for Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Foundation Trust, changed his name to Lewis Green between his arrest and sentencing. A panel of the HCPC’s Conduct and Competence Committee found his fitness to practise impaired by reason of his convictions and removed him from the Register after a hearing he chose not to attend.
Background Information
Oakden was registered as a physiotherapist, registration number PH126043, and worked at Ilkeston Community Hospital. On 29 January 2025 police attended his home address after receiving information that a device with an IP address linked to it had uploaded an indecent image of a child. Officers found electronic devices in his bedroom, including a computer tower, along with bags containing powders and coloured tablets, scales and cash. Oakden was arrested that day at his place of work, and a mobile phone was seized from him; he refused to provide its PIN. His employer suspended him on 30 January 2025, the day after the arrest, and dismissed him on 29 July 2025, before the criminal proceedings began. He had been suspended from the HCPC Register on an interim basis since 6 March 2025.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Criminal conviction. The offences were admitted and convicted in a criminal court; the striking-off was the regulator’s consequence.
Police analysis of Oakden’s devices found child sexual abuse material. His computer tower contained a collection of indecent images of children across Categories A, B and C, with further images found on his mobile phone. Files accessed on the tower included the words “Girl 13Yo”, “12yo” and “13yo”. Sentencing, the judge described Oakden as having searched for “what was plainly abusive imagery of underage girls”, noting that these were “real children” who were “being sadistically abused in some cases”.
The seized items also pointed to drug dealing. Analysis found class A drugs including cocaine, MDMA, 2C-B and LSD, class B ketamine and class C drugs including alprazolam and deschloroetizolam, alongside evidence that he had been supplying cocaine, MDMA, ketamine and “magic mushrooms”. The sentencing judge said Oakden had the means to package the drugs and had been “selling them to a relatively small cadre of associates and friends who wanted to buy them”.
On 18 December 2025, following guilty pleas at Nottingham Magistrates’ Court, Oakden was convicted of three counts of making an indecent photograph of a child, in Categories A, B and C, and of multiple drug offences. Between his arrest and sentencing he changed his name to Lewis Green, and his certificate of conviction was issued in that name. On 12 March 2026 at Nottingham Crown Court he was given a total of two years’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, with the individual sentences imposed concurrently, along with 200 hours of unpaid work, 10 rehabilitation activity requirement days and completion of the “building choices” programme. He was also made subject to sex offender notification requirements and a Sexual Harm Prevention Order, each for 10 years.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The HCPC brought the convictions before a final hearing on 25 September 2026, held by video link. Oakden emailed the regulator in advance: “I won’t be attending, or represented, or submitting any documents. I have accessed the bundle.” The panel proceeded in his absence and accepted the certificate of conviction as proof, matching it to Oakden through the police URN number recorded on both the initial report and the certificate issued to Lewis Green.
The panel found the statutory ground of conviction made out and his fitness to practise impaired on both the personal and public components. It found the conduct to be serious, persistent and deliberate, identified no evidence of insight, remorse or remediation, and concluded there was a high risk of repetition. Applying the HCPTS Sanctions Policy — under which any offence involving indecent images of children demonstrates conduct “incompatible with continued registration and likely to lead to strike off”, and inclusion on a sex offenders’ database normally points the same way — the panel struck him off, finding no lesser sanction sufficient to protect the public. An 18-month interim suspension order was imposed to cover any appeal period.
Current Status
Oakden is struck off the HCPC Register and cannot practise as a physiotherapist. He remains subject to his suspended sentence and its requirements until 2028, and to the 10-year notification requirements and Sexual Harm Prevention Order imposed in March 2026. He has since used the name Lewis Green. The public record does not indicate that any appeal against the striking-off order has been lodged.
Impact on Their Career/Life
The convictions formalised the collapse of an NHS career: arrested at work in January 2025, suspended by the trust within a day and dismissed that July. The striking-off order bars him from registered physiotherapy practice, and the panel said it could not envisage a return to practise in the short or even long term. With no engagement with the regulator and no evidence of remediation, the panel found the behaviour suggestive of a deep-seated attitudinal issue that would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to remediate.