"I took my hood down and uncovered my face."
Salman Siddiqi, aged 44, of London, was jailed for two years and four months after arranging to meet a teenage boy on hospital grounds.
But the intensive care paediatrician did not realise that the ‘teenage boy’ was actually a self-professed ‘paedophile hunter’.
Prosecutor Amy Nicholson said Siddiqi used Grindr to speak to the vigilante, who was pretending to be a 14-year-old boy called Lee.
The doctor also lied about his age, claiming to be 32.
Ms Nicholson said: “Mr Siddiqi engaged with Lee on the Grindr app and asked him to come to his home for oral sex and sent pictures of his erect penis.
“He asked him to come to his place of work to meet him at the QEQM, where the defendant was working at the time as a paediatric doctor.”
The pair began talking on January 7, 2023, with ‘Lee’ making it clear he was underage.
The vigilante asked: “Are you okay with me being 14?”
Siddiqi replied: “Yes.”
In later messages, when asked if he wanted to meet, Siddiqi said:
“It is not allowed by law otherwise I would’ve loved it.”
During the early hours of January 8, Siddiqi arrived at the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother hospital in Margate.
Siddiqi was confronted outside the accommodation by a 49-year-old man. He then turned and ran into the hospital’s A&E department.
The ‘paedophile hunter’ gave chase while calling police.
Siddiqi was eventually detained by staff and arrested when officers arrived at the hospital, before being charged.
In a statement read in court, the paedophile hunter said:
“I took my hood down and uncovered my face.
“I said, ‘I am obviously not Lee, I am Kenny and I am a sexual protection activist’.”
Siddiqi hid in the hospital car park before running into an A&E entrance for ambulances.
When he was arrested shortly before 5:30am, he had changed into hospital scrubs.
Explicit messages and images related to his offending were uncovered when police searched his phone.
At Folkestone Magistrates Court, Siddiqi pleaded guilty to attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child and attempting to arrange or facilitate the commission of a child for a sexual offence.
Kevin Dent KC, defending, said Siddiqi had an “unblemished” record as a doctor and that he “deeply regrets his conduct”.
He said: “At the time, Mr Siddiqi was struggling with the stresses and strains of caring for a severely disabled four-year-old son and the trauma of his condition.
“He was also trying to cope with his attraction to adult males.”
Mr Dent added that the doctor is a “figure of shame and embarrassment to those who know him”.
Siddiqi was previously cautioned by police for exposing himself in a London nature reserve in 2019.
He failed to tell the General Medical Council (GMC) about the caution, and in January 2021 started working for East Kent Hospitals, which runs the QEQM.
Two months later, he told GMC officials about the caution.
But a disciplinary hearing did not take place until July 2022, following which he was suspended for a month.
Despite this, East Kent Hospitals deemed Siddiqi not to be a risk to patients and he was allowed to continue working at its sites until his arrest in January 2023.
Judge Mark Weekes said: “With the knowledge and training you have in your profession, you of all people should have known the deep and everlasting harm you were prepared to cause.
“There was mercifully no child victim in this case and this was no thanks to you.”
Hoping that East Kent Hospitals will carry out an investigation, the judge added:
“To my mind, very real safeguarding concerns are raised by your behaviour and I hope appropriate investigations are conducted by QEQM and associated hospitals following your sentencing.”
Siddiqi was jailed for two years and four months.
He was also made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order and added to the sex offenders register.
Detective Constable Deniz Aslan, of Kent Police’s paedophile online investigation team, said:
“Siddiqi made it explicitly clear that he intended to commit very serious sexual offences involving a young child and the graphic detail he included in his messages was hugely concerning.
“It is clear Siddiqi is a risk to the public, and he now faces the consequences of his abhorrent desires.”
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