A convicted rapist from Essex has been removed from the Social Care Register by a committee of the General Social Care Council held on Friday 15 August.

Mr Mncedisi V. Apleni, a Registered Social Worker, was found guilty of rape by Inner London Crown Court in January this year. The Committee heard that the victim had drunk a significant amount at a party attended by Mr Apleni, 48, who then offered her a lift home; during the course of the drive to her home, the Jury found that Mr Apleni had taken advantage of the victim’s inebriated state and raped her. He was jailed for four and a half years.

The Committee found the proven misconduct “was a serious and deliberate offence and an abuse of trust committed on a female at night, by a person she knew, who was giving her a lift home when she was inebriated”, a fact compounded by Mr Apleni’s initial denial both to the investigating police officers and the court itself.

Mr Apleni has now been removed from the Social Care Register and must not practise as, or purport to be, a Registered Social Worker. To do so may result in prosecution.

Sir Rodney Brooke, Chair of the GSCC, said: “It is vital that the public can have confidence and trust in the social work profession and removing those whose conduct fails to meet the high standards expected of them is a significant way of achieving this, particularly so in cases such as this involving serious criminality. It is also important to reassure people who use services and the public as a whole that the majority of social workers work to a very high standard, putting the interests of service users at the heart of everything they do. Fortunately, those who commit misconduct form only a tiny part of the 81,000 social workers who practice in England.”

Registrants have a right of appeal to the independent Care Standards Tribunal.