By Charlotte Webster-
A doctor already serving three life sentences for abusing his position as a Romford GP, has been found guilty of another string of sexual assaults on four women, after exploiting the names of celebrities to do so.
The Old Bailey heard that from 2009 to July 2013, Manish Shah(pictured) convinced women to have invasive examinations despite there being no medical need for them.
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Shah went against protocol by declining to offer chaperones to join the victims during their appointments, leaving them alone with him so he could carry out the assaults.
Each victim told police of a consistently deceptive pattern of behaviour in which Shah seemed to be a good doctor and was friendly and caring. Underneath that charm was a horrifying twisted mind of evil and lack of empathy.
Exploiting his position the former GP convinced them that they would need extra examinations to explore if there was anything more serious about the relatively minor conditions they had come in for.
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Manish Shah used the cases of celebrities Angelina Jolie and Jade Goody to instil fear into his victims as young as 15 years old so they would agree to the invasive examinations.
The 53-year-old was previously convicted of 90 sex offences against 24 female patients at two trials – serving three life sentences with a minimum term of 15 years in prison – and has now been found guilty of another 25 offences against four women.
Jurors heard how he abused his trusted position to persuade patients to undergo unnecessary intimate examinations for his sexual gratification.
As well as conducting unnecessary examinations, Shah, using his position and abusing the victim’s trust, would go against protocol and not offer chaperones to join the victims during their appointments, leaving them alone with him to carry out these acts.
He was previously been a well-regarded GP partner at Mawney Road medical practice in Romford and made himself seem “friendly and helpful” and would call the women overly-familiar names such as “star”, “special girl” and his “favourite”.
Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones KC said: “It is submitted that his sexualised behaviour, the way he behaved towards the young women, illustrates that sexual gratification was his ultimate motivation – it certainly was not the health of the patients, when any competent GP would have realised that his examinations were not appropriate or justified.#
A family doctor is a position where trust is essential – a patient must place sufficient trust in the doctor to permit intimate examinations, so as to safeguard her health.
“The prosecution alleges that the defendant presented as a caring, considerate and solicitous doctor, prepared to go above and beyond for his patients, prepared to try and give the impression he was the only doctor prepared to carry out extra examinations, but that the evidence as a whole exposes that this was no more than a facade, and that he manipulated and abused the trust placed in him for his own sexual satisfaction.”
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