Doctor ‘molested dozens of patients including girl, 9’
A TRUSTED family doctor molested 25 female patients, some as young as nine, who failed to report him for decades because of a feeling that “doctor knows best”, a court heard yesterday.
Alan Tutin, 70, stands accused of sexually assaulting the women between 1981 and 2004 while working as a GP in Surrey. In one case he allegedly assaulted a girl aged nine. In another case he allegedly molested a colleague at his home while his own heavily pregnant wife was sleeping upstairs.
The Old Bailey heard that many of Dr Tutin’s victims were teenagers who were too scared to tell anyone what had happened until years later.
The prosecution suggested patients were reluctant to “complain or make a fuss”, because of a general attitude that “doctor knows best”.
The court heard how Dr Tutin took advantage of his position to sexually assault a large number of women during almost the entire time he spent at the Merrow Park Surgery, in Guildford.
Sally O’neill QC, prosecuting, told the jury: “The sexual assaults were typically committed under the guise of breast examinations or vaginal examinations, some of which were entirely unnecessary and were carried out for his sexual gratification.
“Complainant after complainant say this defendant behaved towards them in a way they knew at the time wasn’t right, but mostly didn’t have the courage to say anything about it.”
In a number of cases Dr Tutin is alleged to have carried out vaginal examinations on patients who had simply come in with a sore throat or other minor ailments. The court heard that in one particularly shocking case he carried out an invasive examination on a
‘The defendant behaved in a way they knew at the time wasn’t right but did not have the courage to say anything’
nine-year-old girl in 1986 that caused her to cry out in pain.
Complaints had previously emerged about his behaviour, leading to two police investigations. In 1999 Dr Tutin was cleared of two charges of sexual assault, neither of which involved the current allegations against him.
The General Medical Council (GMC) brought no disciplinary measures against him but warned in 2003 that a chaperone should be present when he examined female patients. That meant Dr Tutin was allowed to carry on practising until his retirement in 2004.
Many of Dr Tutin’s alleged victims only came forward to complain about him after reading about reports of these cases in the local press.
Explaining their reluctance to come forward Ms O’neill said: “The combination of the implicit trust imposed in a doctor, the relatively minor nature of some of the sexual assaults, the general disinclination to complain or to make a fuss, more prevalent then than now perhaps, may all have played their part in the reluctance to complain.”
Police re-opened their investigations in 2013, at which point letters were sent to thousands of his patients and former patients, leading to more than 100 women coming forward.
Opening the case for the defence, Louise Sweet QC said Dr Tutin strongly maintained his innocence.
Ms Sweet suggested that patients who already felt embarrassed about intimate examinations may have misinterpreted Dr Tutin’s blunt and forthright manner, while others may have “retrospectively reinterpreted” what happened to them after hearing about other women’s complaints and may have come to believe they too had suffered a sexual assault.
The trial continues.