Nottingham doctor sexually assaulted patients, court told

A hospital doctor strayed from his own ward to sexually assault two vulnerable male patients, a jury has heard.

Tayabb Shah, 39, formerly of Sherwood, Nottingham, denies five counts of sexual assault at the Queen’s Medical Centre in September 2020.

Nottingham Crown Court heard he had touched the men’s private parts under the pretext of medical examinations.

The jury was told the defendant had not made any notes of the examinations he carried out on the men.

Opening the case, prosecutor Ian West said the “trust grade junior doctor” had sexually abused “two vulnerable men”, neither of whom “needed genital examination”.

The court heard one of the men was treated in the emergency department and then taken to an acute ward.

“He was sitting ready to be discharged. By chance the defendant was working on accident and emergency,” Mr West said.

“He [the defendant] made his way on to the ward and put forward the pre-text that he had been sent to help. He hadn’t.”

Shortly after the assault, the court heard, the complainant confided in a relative, who contacted the patient’s consultant.

Describing the subsequent inquiry to identify the doctor concerned in the incident, Mr West added: “No-one quite knew who he was.

“By chance when they were getting close to identifying Mr Shah he was seen with another patient.

“When the nurses spoke to [the second complainant] he said he thought it was a proper examination taking place.

“He also had been sexually abused.

“But he also described that when he was in hospital a few weeks earlier the same doctor had done it twice more.”

Mr West explained that the defendant accepts he was the doctor in question but insists he did not touch the men’s genitalia.

“You will have to consider what he was doing off his department,” he told the jury

“He was on the accident and emergency department. He had no place on the acute ward.”

The trial continues.

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