A doctor who groped the breasts of colleagues and a patient has been suspended for a year.
Dr Maher Khetyar was first accused of inappropriate behaviour in 2004 at Caithness General Hospital when he touched the neck of a nurse, tried to hug her and asked for her mobile number.
Although police were called in to investigate the incident in Wick, the probe was shelved and the nurse left her job feeling she was “made out to be a liar”.
Those allegations have now been proved.
And a hearing of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in Manchester heard they were re-examined after further claims were made about the doctor’s subsequent behaviour elsewhere.
A paramedic, known as Ms C, claimed her encounter with Khetyar took place at High Wycombe Hospital in Buckinghamshire in July 2013 after she sought paracetamol for a headache.
She said that after saying he needed to examine her “the doctor put his hand down my top, squeezed my left breast and then my right breast for two seconds.” She told the tribunal: “I was a bit confused but in my head I hadn’t decided I had been sexually assaulted.
“I asked my colleague if there was a reason a doctor would do that and had he seen this before.
“He said there’s nothing normal about what just happened, he said this is sexual assault.”
The third woman, known as Patient B, had undergone an X-ray after suffering breathing problems.
She claimed that the doctor stood “extremely close” to her before he cupped and squeezed both of her breasts.
She said: “I was concerned whether he was a real doctor.”
Khetyar, 45, said that, in relation to the paramedic: “It was the end of my shift and I was very tired.”
He also stated that “medicine is my life, it is the only thing I love” and his wife gave evidence before the tribunal, speaking of financial and personal difficulties.
He was suspended for 12 months after the tribunal found he showed “genuine remorse” and was “developing insight” and that “the risk of repetition is not high”.
Tribunal chairman David Urpeth told him his actions “significantly crossed the boundaries of the doctor/patient relationship and clearly breached the guidelines”.
“The tribunal is in no doubt that fellow professionals would regard your actions as deplorable,” he said.
Syrian-born Khetyar, a father of two from Slough, Berkshire, still denies sexual motivation but “respects” the tribunal’s findings and has apologised to the women involved.
