A MENTAL health worker for St Ann’s Hospital in Poole had sex with a vulnerable inpatient less than a fortnight after she tried to kill herself.

Andrew Harvey, part of a ‘bank’ of support workers, was accompanying the woman on a supervised trip to see her children when the offences took place in 2015.

The two arrived for their meeting around two-and-half hours early and Harvey suggested they get a hotel room.

They visited two hotels in Dorchester trying to find an available room, but were unsuccessful.

The victim, a widow, was then encouraged to visit website booking.com, where she found a vacancy at the Old Tea House. They had sex in one of the rooms.

A court heard that the visit with the children was being observed by a psychiatrist who would determine the victim’s suitability to spend time with them for a local authority.

Sadie Rizzo, prosecuting at Bournemouth Crown Court, said the victim had been admitted to the hospital twice in the space of a few months in 2015 and struck up a “flirtatious” relationship with Harvey.

She was admitted the second time after trying to commit suicide.

After the two had sex, Harvey told her: “I could lose my job over this. You’re not going to say anything, are you?”

The victim was discharged from the hospital shortly after the offences. However, she was readmitted two days later and told staff about the incident.

Harvey, of Chaddesley Wood Road in Sandbanks, Poole, told police the victim had booked the room and tried to kiss him, but he “pushed her away”.

The two then watched TV together on the bed, he claimed. However, the Old Tea House doesn’t have TVs in its rooms, Ms Rizzo said.

Harvey admitted three counts of sexual activity with a person with a mental disorder by a care worker.

Mitigating, Nicholas Robinson said Harvey - who also works as a painter and decorator - was “emotionally vulnerable” when he made a “terrible, ill-judged decision”.

“This was an aberration,” Mr Robinson said. “He has genuinely contemplated suicide.”

He said the defendant is “wracked with guilt” by the incident, which has “tarnished his conscience and his character”.

However, Judge Peter Crabtree OBE said the defendant, now aged 42, had been responsible for a vulnerable patient on the day of the offences.

The judge also disregarded the defendant’s claims that the sex was spontaneous, arguing: “He went from hotel to hotel to seek a room.”

Harvey, 42, was sentenced to 21 months in prison. He will also be subject to a 10-year notification requirement and sexual harm prevention order.