An ex-GP, who used high-profile cancer cases like Jade Goody’s as cover for conducting unnecessary, invasive medical examinations on women patients has been jailed for fifteen years.
Fifty-year-old Manish Shah, from Romford’s Brunel Close, sexually assaulted his patients, the youngest aged just fifteen, over a five year period as he advised them to have regular breast and vaginal check-ups even though there was no clinical need.
He was sentenced at the Old Bailey on Friday, February 7, to life imprisonment and will serve a minimum of fifteen years for assaulting 24 women and girls in 90 separate assaults. All bravely gave evidence at his two trials.
In December 2019 he was found guilty of nine counts of sexual assault and sixteen counts of sexual assault by penetration against six women victims.
He was also found guilty at an earlier trial in 2018 of 65 offences of sexual assault and sixteen counts of sexual assault by penetration – involving eighteen other female victims.
Shah targeted the women between 2009 and 2013 while working as a GP at Mawney Medical Centre in Romford.
He used the high-profile cancer battles of female celebrities such as Jade Goody and Angelia Jolie to encourage the patient to have urgent check-ups they didn’t need.
The court also heard he was “over-familiar” with some patients with inappropriate comments and physical contact including “hugging and kissing”.
In 2013 four women made separate allegations to the practice where he worked that they had been assaulted by him. He was arrested after an investigation that involved reviewing his medical notes and contacting 139 of his patients uncovered the scale of his abuse of power.
Detective Superintendent Tara McGovern from central specialist crime said: “Shah was a long-serving doctor who was well-known in the community and trusted and liked by his patients, many who had him as their GP for many years. The judge rightly described him as a “master of deception”.
“They were unaware that Shah was carrying out unnecessary, invasive examinations on female patients for his own sexual gratification, after giving his victims misleading clinical advice.
“These offences are particularly grave due to Shah’s abuse of his position, and of the trust placed in him as a family doctor.
“His conviction is the culmination of a huge amount of work on what was a complex, sensitive investigation which was supported by NHS England.
“I would like to acknowledge the women who were victims of Shah, and who supported the prosecution and gave evidence at Shah’s trials. Without their evidence, Shah may not have been brought to justice, but the weight of evidence against him at both trials was overwhelming.”