Alan Tutin 75

Description

A former Guildford GP who sexually assaulted 15 patients, including a 12-year-old girl, has failed to get his conviction overturned.

Alan Tutin groped women and girls over a 23-year period between 1981 and 2004, with most of those offences having been committed at the Merrow Park Practice, where he had been a GP since 1980.

The 71-year-old was convicted of 15 counts of sexual assault in December 2018 following a trial and jailed for 10 years and six months at the Old Bailey in May 2019.

An appeal against his conviction was dismissed at the Court of Appeal after a hearing on Tuesday (March 17).

Defendants are entitled to appeal convictions and sentences handed down at Crown Courts.

Tutins trial previously heard how he groped his victims in an immature, Benny Hill fashion using reasoning of breast or vaginal examinations, which were said to be either unnecessary or carried out in an inappropriate way for sexual gratification.

The sex offender, of Crittenden Road in Tonbridge, Kent, had originally been charged with 28 counts of sexual assault, but was acquitted of eight.

The jury was also unable to agree verdicts on the remaining five charges, with a subsequent trial in May 2019 at Blackfriars Crown Court finding him not guilty of three of them.

Allegations were first made against Tutin in 2000 when he was put on trial at the Old Bailey, charged with indecently assaulting three women and two children.

He was acquitted of assaulting one of the children and the other charges were dropped. A year later he was acquitted by a General Medical Council (GMC) tribunal of eight counts of sexually assaulting patients.

In 2009, he was struck off after a separate GMC panel found him guilty of sexually assaulting five women, including molesting one of his colleagues at his home, telling another woman to strip for an eye test, and groping a patients breasts while examining her internally.

The investigation, that resulted in Tutins conviction, began in March 2014, with the GP being arrested in July of the same year.

A number of complainants came forward after being contacted by police, and Tutin was eventually charged with 28 counts of sexual assault involving 25 complainants.

At his sentencing hearing, one of Tutins victims said: My initial response was a sense of being abused, violated and feeling dirty, and wanting a shower.

"I was only young so was upset and confused by what he did. I trusted him as a doctor and was brought up to respect authority and do as I was told, which is what I did."