Top surgeon ‘carried out sex assaults in hospitals’

A RENOWNED heart surgeon raped a woman and sexually assaulted a string of others at two hospitals, a court heard yesterday. Mohamed Amrani, 53, is accused of a 13-year campaign of ‘sexual bullying’, grabbing women’s breasts and genitals and patting one on the bottom in an operating theatre.

The leading surgeon performed Britain’s first double heart-valve replacement using keyhole surgery in 2007. Peter Clement, prosecuting, told the Old Bailey: ‘In his capacity of a consultant cardiac and transplant surgeon, Mohamed Amrani was held in the highest regard by those who worked with him.

‘But there was another side to him – one who exhibited sexualised behaviour. It wasn’t just banter, it was overt sexualised behaviour which was obscene and descended into assaults. His position conferred a high degree of authority, power and trust. He breached all three for his own sexual gratification, confident that those whom he assaulted would not dare make a formal complaint.’

Amrani is accused of raping one woman and carrying out sexual assaults on four others at Harefield Hospital in West London and the private Bupa Cromwell Hospital in Kensington, West London, between 2001 and 2014.

One woman alleged she was raped in Amrani’s office at the Harefield in September 2013. She told police the surgeon, wearing his operating the- Rape charge: Mohamed Amrani atre scrubs, said to her: ‘I’m going to f*** you,’ before she pleaded: ‘No, please don’t… please don’t.’

But she claimed Amrani ignored her pleas, sexually assaulting her twice then raping her.

The alleged attack ended only when his mobile phone rang and he answered it before pulling up the trousers of his operating scrubs and leaving the office.

Mr Clement said: ‘Consent didn’t enter into it, she did not consent and Mohamed Amrani did not reasonably believe she had consented. He could not care less about her wishes.’

Before the incident, the married woman said Amrani had twice told her: ‘You owe me,’ apparently a reference to the surgeon arranging for a colleague to look at a scan of one of her family members who was ill.

Amrani, of Harrow, north-west London, denies all 11 charges against him – one count of rape, two of assault by penetration, six of indecent assault, and two of sexual assault. The trial continues.

‘Couldn’t care less about her wishes’