*London: *An India-born doctor was today sentenced to 12 years in prisonfor sexually assaulting four women patients in United Kingdom between 2008and 2015.
Jaswant Rathore was found guilty of conducting unnecessary massages on thepatients at his Castle Meadows Surgery in Dudley, in the West Midlandsregion of UK.
The 60-year-old, who had moved to UK with his family at the age of three,was also placed on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely and made thesubject of a 15-year sexual harm prevention order at the end of the hearingat Wolverhampton Crown Court.
“You used your standing within the community as a cloak behind which youcould carry out sexual assaults on your patients for your personalgratification,” Judge Michael Challinor told him during sentencing.
“By your actions you violated the faith they had in you to carry outlegitimate medical procedures. Some of your behaviour demonstrated abreath-taking degree of arrogance you no doubt hoping your standing in themedical community would enable you to talk your way out of any difficulty,”he said.
The general practitioner (GP) was convicted of eight charges of sexualassault and two counts of assault by penetration against four women aged intheir 20s and 30s following a seven-week trial.
He was cleared of a further eight allegations relating to four otherpatients.
The judge recounted that many witnesses had spoken highly of his”professionalism, diligence, expertise and amiability” but his personal andprofessional life had been turned into a “complete shipwreck” due to the”planned and sustained” assaults.
“Many people visit their doctors and submit to the most intimate ofexaminations because they trust their doctor and that is eroded by peoplelike you,” he noted.
Rathore had denied the allegations and insisted he had always actedprofessionally and, in each case, the touching during “manipulativetherapy” had been medically appropriate.
The court was told that the GP had conducted his assaults on patients whohad gone to his surgery with regular complaints such as pain in theirstomach or back.
Detective Inspector Michelle Thurgood of West Midlands Police, who headedthe police investigation in the case, said: “It was a horrific breach of aposition of trust. This was somebody who was a trusted GP, respected in thecommunity.”
“Many of the patients had gone to him for many years, so absolutely trustedhim. We go to our doctor when we’re at our most vulnerable and he hasabused that trust by carrying out those offences.”
Thurgood said the police feared there may be other victims as Rathore wasworking as a GP for many years and called on any others to “find thestrength” to come forward.