Nottingham emergency department doctor went to acute ward to commit sex attacks, jury told

A hospital doctor strayed from his own ward to sexually assault two male patients, including one who had been passed fit for discharge by a consultant, a jury has heard.

Tayabb Shah, of no fixed address but formerly of Sherwood, Nottingham, denies committing five sex assaults at the city’s Queen’s Medical Centre over a two-week period in 2020.

Opening the case against the 39-year-old, counsel for the Crown Ian West told the court: "The prosecution say that this defendant, a trust grade junior doctor at the Queen’s Medical Centre sexually abused two vulnerable men."

Alleging that Shah had touched the men’s private parts under the pre-text of medical examinations, Mr West said: "The Crown’s case is clear, neither of these two males needed genital examination."

A jury of five women and seven men at Nottingham Crown Court was told the inquiry into Shah started after a victim, who is the subject of one of the five charges, was treated in the emergency department and then taken to an acute ward where the alleged assault occurred.

Mr West said: "He (the alleged victim) was sitting ready to be discharged.

"By chance the defendant was working on accident and emergency.

"He made his way onto the (acute) ward and put forward the pre-text that he had been sent to help. He hadn’t."

Shortly after the alleged assault, the court heard, the complainant confided in a relative, who contacted the patient’s consultant.

Describing the subsequent inquiry to identify the doctor concerned in the incident, Mr West added: "No one quite knew who he was.

"By chance when they were getting close to identifying Mr Shah he was seen with another patient.

"When the nurses spoke to (the second complainant) he said he thought it was a proper examination taking place.

"He also had been sexually abused.

"But he also described that when he was in hospital a few weeks earlier the same doctor had done it twice more."

Explaining the issues the jury were being asked to consider, Mr West added: "The defendant denies sexual touching.

"He does accept it was him. He was the doctor in question, he accepts that he examined these two people.

"He says it was only the superpubic area and at no time did he touch the genitalia.”

The jury was also told Shah had not made any notes of the examinations.

Mr West told the jury: "You will have to consider what he was doing off his department. He was on the accident and emergency department.

"He had no place on the acute ward."

The trial continues on Tuesday.