GP branded 'worst kind of predator' after forcing internal examinations on patients

A GP was branded the "worst kind of predator" in court after being jailed for assaulting women while carrying out medical examinations.

Stephen Cox, 65, was found guilty last yearof 12 charges on seven patients while working at a practice in Bracknell, Berkshire, between 1988 and 1997, and jailed for 22 years.

On Thursday, a Medical Practitioners Tribunal decided to remove him from the medical register. It said that the offending was so serious it was "fundamentally incompatible with continued registration".

Judge Sarah Campbell said Cox was the "worst kind of sexual predator" and had assaulted vulnerable women he thought would be less likely to complain.

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The tribunal found a number of "aggravating factors", specifically the "repeated and serious nature" of the offences, which involved multiple women and a child. It also said Cox's victims were vulnerable and that he abused his position of trust.

"The Tribunal concluded that erasure was the only appropriate and proportionate sanction to impose in this case," the judgement said. "The Tribunal considered that public confidence in the profession would be undermined, and it would be failing to uphold all three limbs of the overarching objective were any sanction less than erasure imposed on Dr Cox."

Cox previously worked in Wokingham, Burton-on-Trent, Wolverhampton, Derby, Leicestershire, Telford and West Sussex. Cox denied all 16 charges of indecent assault while working at a surgery in Bracknell, Berkshire, during the 1980s and 1990s.

During his trial at Reading Crown Court, the jury heard Cox got patients to undress unnecessarily, touched their breasts, pressed his body against them, and carried out internal examinations when they were not needed or without using gloves.

Cox, of Stockton Mill, Welshpool in Shropshire, claimed the women were mistaken in their allegations and that the examinations would have been medically justified. He also said he did not remember any of the patients and that they were not telling the truth.

After the GP was convicted, Detective Constable Sara Di Giorgio said Cox was a "prolific and predatory sex offender hiding beneath the mask of being a trusted doctor", and he "completely betrayed" patients' trust. She added that Cox carried out a series of indecent assaults "which his victims have had to live with for many decades".

"He has never displayed an ounce of remorse for what he had done, and has constantly denied any wrongdoing, this despite a number of women, none of whom know each other, coming forward to report what he had done to them," DC Di Giorgio said.

Due to the timings of the crimes, police had to rely on handwritten GP notes when investigating the allegations. Lawyer Chris White, for the CPS, said Cox's behaviour was "clearly sexually motivated" and he "used his position to take advantage of his patients".

"With no witnesses to the assaults, it was the strength of all the victims' accounts, which showed a similar pattern in Cox's behaviour, that helped secure his conviction," he said.

"We would like to thank them for coming forward and we hope today's sentence gives them some sense of closure."