GMC strikes off 'groping' doctor

Dr Phillips had denied the medical checks were inappropriate

A consultant neurologist from Swansea has been struck off after being found guilty of indecency by the General Medical Council (GMC).

Brian Phillips, 74, from Swansea, groped women for a "sexual thrill" after they complained about a range of minor ailments, the GMC panel found.

Dr Phillips was investigated for 16 examinations on patients, aged between 18 and 68, at four Swansea hospitals.

The GMC found his behaviour towards three of them amounted to indecency.

The charges related to patients Dr Phillips had seen between 1989 and 2000 at the Sancta Maria, Singleton, Morriston and Cefn Coed Hospitals and consulting rooms in Walter Road.

Dr Phillips claimed he was taught to examine patients fully in the days before scanners and denied he should have offered the women a chaperone.

The medic, who retired in 1996 from NHS treatment but continued as a private locum at Singleton Hospital, said he was checking for "lumps and bumps".

Your actions left women at best worried and confused and at worst distressed and feeling violated Alyson Leslie GMC Panel chairwoman

Striking Dr Phillips from the medical register, chairwoman Alyson Leslie said the panel was in "no doubt" his failures were a "serious and repeated" departure from the standards expected of a doctor.

She added: "The panel has found that the breast examinations you carried out upon patients were not done for any legitimate medical reason.

"They were indecent: you performed them for your own sexual gratification.

"Your actions left women at best worried and confused and at worst distressed and feeling violated.

"These were all people who had visited you at a time of vulnerability when concerns existed for their health.

"You compounded their anxiety in already difficult situations by your inappropriate and inadequate examinations."

Medical checks

The GMC had been deliberating on charges covering 16 women - six of which involved claims of indecency.

It found in November that charges relating to three of them had been proved.

Dr Phillips, who qualified in 1955, had admitted carrying out the examinations without giving a proper explanation to his patients.

But he denied acting without their consent or that the "medical checks" were indecent, inappropriate or inadequate.

The consultant, who qualified in 1955, was earlier charged with indecently assaulting eight women, but was cleared at Cardiff Crown Court in April 2002.