Robert M Williams
Introduction
Robert M Williams is a former physiotherapist who was registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). In March 2026 an HCPC panel struck him off the register in his absence, after hearing that he had been convicted of sexual assault and finding proved a set of historic allegations that he had sexually abused a service user during a home visit .
Background Information
Williams worked as a physiotherapist, a role that brings practitioners into patients’ homes and into physical contact justified only by clinical need. The criminal strand of his case concluded on 16 December 2024, when he was convicted at Shrewsbury Crown Court of sexual assault on a female. The regulatory strand reached further back: the HCPC’s case also concerned an episode involving a service user referred to as Service User 2, whose account had been gathered by police as long ago as 2008 and revisited when the HCPC received a referral in November 2021 .
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Struck off. The panel found the conviction and the proved service-user particulars amounted to impairment and directed removal on 18 March 2026.
The conviction was particular one: on 16 December 2024 Williams was convicted at Shrewsbury Crown Court of sexual assault on a female. The second strand concerned an occasion on or around 7 January 2008, when — the panel found — he attended Service User 2 at her home, pulled down or removed her underwear without her permission, stroked her stomach, touched her groin while she was without her underwear, placed his lips on her nipple, and asked her “shall I massage your breasts?” and told her “your nipples have come out now.” The panel found those particulars proved, found the conduct sexually motivated, and accepted the HCPC’s submission that in pursuit of his own sexual gratification he had exploited his professional role .
The hearing proceeded without him. He had not responded to the notice of hearing or engaged with the proceedings in any way, and the panel heard evidence that as of October 2025 he was no longer in the custody of HM Prison and Probation Service. Satisfied that he had voluntarily absented himself, the panel concluded the public interest — including in a case of this age — required it to proceed and decide the allegations on the evidence .
Public Reaction and Consequences
The panel found his fitness to practise impaired by reason of both his conviction and his misconduct, and directed that his name be struck from the register, with the order taking effect on the date it came into force. The proved particulars were mapped against the HCPC’s standards of conduct, performance and ethics, including the requirement to act in patients’ best interests — a framework the panel found his conduct breached at its core. The striking-off order is the regulator’s most severe sanction and removes him from physiotherapy practice altogether .
Current Status
Williams was struck off the HCPC register with effect from the March 2026 decision. He remains a convicted sex offender by virtue of the 2024 Crown Court conviction, and the erasure is recorded in public listings of regulator decisions. No appeal against either the conviction or the striking-off order has been reported in the determination .
Impact on Their Career/Life
The case joins a criminal court’s answer to a regulatory one. The Crown Court convicted him of sexual assault in December 2024; the HCPC panel then found the parallel service-user allegations proved and sexually motivated — conduct that had sat in a police file since 2008 until a 2021 referral revived it. For the profession, the determination is a statement that a physiotherapist’s access to service users in their own homes is a trust position in the fullest sense, and that sexual conduct within it ends not only the job but the registration. For Service User 2, the published findings amount to formal institutional recognition, nearly two decades after the events, that what she described happened and was the practitioner’s gratification, not treatment .