In something that could come right out of a sitcom, an Australian man was arrested earlier this December after pretending to be a doctor at several hospitals for months.
His goal? To find a boyfriend.
The man, Nicholas Brett Delaney, 25, told police that he was trying to impress men who worked at the hospital in an effort to find love, 9 News in Australia reports.
Delaney stole a children's health hospital lanyard in May, according to the Courier Mail, and spent the next six months regularly visiting Brisbane’s Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital and Ronald McDonald House. The lanyard allowed him to access staff-only areas of each hospital, where he would meet and befriend the staff. He told police that he was too embarrassed to admit to his new friends that he was a "fraud."
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Luckily, Delaney reportedly did not interact with the patients at these hospitals and was instead intent on getting to know the men who work there. He was caught when a hospital worker noticed that he repeatedly mispronounced basic medical terms.
While it may seem like a funny story (what has 2017 come to that this is how we need to find love, anyway?), but Magistrate Stuart Shearer who presided over Delaney's case says it's no laughing matter.
"It is hardly a trivial offence to be impersonating a doctor at a children’s hospital over an extended period of time," Shearer said earlier this week at Delaney’s hearing, according to NewNowNext. "You should understand the seriousness of the offences."
Delaney has pleaded guilty to three charges, including attempted fraud and will face sentencing in January. A representative of Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital told Queerty that the hospital will be reviewing their security systems.
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