A doctor has gone before his professional watchdog accused of assaulting a nurse and molesting two patients.
Dr Maher Khetyar had been accused in 2004 of cornering the nurse in his office at Caithness General in Wick and unzipping her tunic before he exposed her breasts and said: “ooh you have a nipple ring, do you have any others?”
But although police were called in to investigate the incident, the probe was shelved and the nurse left her job feeling she was “made out to be a liar”, a tribunal heard yesterday.
Officers contacted her again in 2014 when two other women came forward and claimed they had been molested by Khetyar whilst he was treating them at hospitals almost 700 miles away in Surrey and Buckinghamshire.
At the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in Manchester yesterday, Syrian-born Khetyar, now 45 and a married father-of-two living in Berkshire, denied sexually motivated behaviour towards the nurse and two patients.
The nurse, known as Ms A, told the hearing: ”This was something I put behind me for 10 years hoping to never have to relive again. I’m not lying about anything.
“I was trying to go out of the room but he wouldn’t let me out.
“He was rubbing my arm and trying to kiss me at the same time. He put his other arm behind my back and proceeded to unzip my top and lift up my bra and he started groping me.
“He remarked on my nipple ring and I vaguely remembered him saying ‘ooh you have a nipple ring, do you have any others?’ The whole thing was disgusting and horrible. I only wish somebody had walked in and I would not have to sit through this now.
“I said ‘no you don’t do this’ and I did up my top.”
Ms A carried on with the rest of her shift, the hearing heard. The panel was told she confided in a senior colleague the following day and the matter was later reported to police but no action was taken against the doctor.
When asked why she failed to report Khetyar immediately Ms A said: “I think I was so scared and didn’t really know what to do and needed to continue going about my job and to not affect my patients.
“Why would I be sitting here 13 years later going through this mental torture that I’ve had to relive for three years if it was a total and utter lie?
“I lost all confidence and all respect for the NHS and I was made out to be a liar.
“I’ve lost everything because of this, everything.”
The hearing continues.
