GP groped pregnant woman and abused other patients, court told

A GP SEXUALLY assaulted female patients over several years by groping their breasts and carrying out invasive examinations that were “not medically justified”, a court has heard.

Dr Stephen Cox, who is now retired, is accused of indecently assaulting seven women while practising medicine in the Bracknell area of Berkshire between October 1990 and September 1997.

He is alleged to have carried out the assaults “on the pretext of carrying out routine medical examinations of the victims”, who were all patients at the Ralphs Ride Surgery, according to the prosecutor. Dr Cox has denied eight counts of sexual assault.

Opening the case for the prosecution at Reading Crown Court yesterday, Tahir Khan KC told jurors: “It is likely, we say, that he gained some sexual pleasure from touching these women inappropriately on their bodies. We say these examinations were not medically justified.”

One of the alleged victims, giving evidence from behind a screen, said she was sexually assaulted by Dr Cox when she was “vulnerable” and five months pregnant in 1990. The woman said that during one antenatal appointment Dr Cox told her she had “rather large breasts”, before groping them over her bra for three or four minutes.

She said she was vulnerable at the time after having recently left an abusive relationship and thought that what Dr Cox was doing must be normal. “I feel stupid now,” she added.

She said that on another occasion Dr Cox carried out an invasive examination. He did not ask her if he could carry out the examination, nor explain why it was taking place, she told jurors.

Another alleged victim, who gave evidence via videolink, told the court that Dr Cox had groped her breasts when she saw him regarding pain in her abdomen in the 1990s.

She said that the doctor asked her to take her bra off and then began touching her breasts. The woman told the court: “It went on for five minutes, no more. But it was five minutes too long.”

Dr Cox joined the surgery as a junior doctor in 1986 and worked there for at least a decade, the jury was told.

He is married and has three children, the prosecutor said. The trial continues.