London: General practitioner Manish Natverlal Shah was on Friday given three life sentences for 90 sex assaults on female patients while working in London, when he carried out invasive examinations for sexual gratification, the media reported.
Shah, 50, who gained his medical qualifications from the University of London in 1993, mentioned health issues of celebrities such as Angeline Jolie and Jade Goody as examples to frighten patients between 2009 and 2013.
Judge Anne Molyneux described him as a “master of deception who abused his position of power. You made up stories which got into heads and caused panic. Your behaviour was not only sexual but was driven by your desire to control and on occasions humiliate women”.
Shah, who worked as a GP in Romford, east London, recommended that the patients have regular breast and vaginal examinations, when there was no clinical need. He highlighted the urgency of check-ups for cervical cancer, breast cancer and other illnesses.
The court was told that Shah was “over familiar” with some of his female patients, and made inappropriate comments as well as making physical contact and hugging and kissing them.
Paul Goddard, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Manish Shah was a trusted family doctor, but he took advantage of that trust to abuse his female patients and then falsified their medical notes to try to justify intimate medical examinations that should not have taken place.
