By IANS,
London : In a second case of its kind, an Indian-origin doctor is on trial in the UK on the charge of routinely fondling the breasts of women patients while conducting examinations at a South Yorkshire medical centre.
Dr Parag Bhatt, 44, denies seven offences of sexual assault at the Rosehill Medical Centre in Rawmarsh, South Yorkshire, where he worked from January last year.
Prosecutor Sarah Wright told Sheffield Crown Court that the doctor touched the women while they were unchaperoned in a manner that was not medically justifiable, Daily Mail has reported.
In October, an Indian-origin dentist, Dr. Praminder Mankoo, was jailed for three years for groping his victims while giving head massages. The Reading crown court also banned Mankoo, who ran a successful clinic in Oxfordshire, for life from giving treatment without a witness present. He will also have to sign on to the Sex Offenders’ List indefinitely.
In Bhatt’s case, the complainants, aged between 37 and 17, said the doctor would ask them to disrobe even if it was an ordinary infection they were seeing him about. He appeared obsessed with breasts and would pinch nipples, explaining it was part of the examination.
In one case, a woman went to him for treating a broken finger. The doctor allegedly asked her about her sex life claiming it was pertinent to the case. The woman said in her complaint that the doctor went on to lift her breast from her bra and put the stethoscope on it.
But the most bizarre case was of a 31-year-old patient. She had been trying for a baby and went to the doctor with stomach pains.
When she coughed he suggested she might have an infection and felt her breasts. He began playing with her right breast and started to ‘tweak’ her nipple. According to her complaint, he then told her: “No, you are not pregnant.”
The doctor was arrested on Oct 4 last year. He maintained to police that he had not sexually assaulted any of the women and had carried out legitimate medical examinations. The prosecution said the women came forward independently and each made similar allegations. The hearing continues.