Police doctor’s sex assaults on female officers ‘went ignored’

MORE than 30 female police officers have accused a former police doctor and convicted sex offender of abusing them, a report has revealed.

Dr Hugh O’neill, 64, a former police doctor, was jailed for 12-years in 2015, after admitting two rapes and three counts of gross indecency against two girls aged under 14.

The following year he was ordered to serve three more years after admitting sexually assaulting 13 female police officers stretching back to 1993.

But now a report into his offending has discovered that at least 33 female police officers were attacked by him during his reign of terror.

The report has revealed how warnings about his actions in the police had been ignored for 10 years before he was eventually fired. O’neill carried out his crimes while working as a GP at Horsford Medical Centre in Norfolk. As part of his job he was responsible for the health of police staff, including examining new recruits to Norfolk Police.

In 1993 there was a recommendation to open a criminal investigation after four female police officers complained he had acted inappropriately, but the issue was ignored. It later emerged that he was sent a letter by the chief constable at the time in which he expressed his regret for causing the doctor “distress”.

O’neill was trapped after one of his victims alerted police following several high-profile sex abuse cases.