MOHAMMAD TARIQUEZZAMAN: ‘I’M BEING CRUCIFIED’ SAYS SEX EXAM DOC

A smirking doctor who invited a university student out for a curry after carrying out a sexually motivated examination claims he fears being ‘crucified for a sin he didn’t commit’, a tribunal heard.

Dr Mohammad Tariquezzaman – known as Dr Zaman – faces being struck off this week after a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service panel found him guilty of carrying out the inappropriate examination.

The tribunal heard how the married doctor leered at the young woman as she undressed, told her she had a ‘nice body’ and pulled her knickers down to her thighs.

The locum doctor then smirked and stared at the patient’s face as he performed an unnecessary vaginal examination at the University College Hospital, in south London.

When she opened her eyes and told him she felt uncomfortable, Zaman, 51, laughed and said: ‘This isn’t the first time this has been done to you.’

He also asked for her phone number, quizzed her about her boyfriend and invited her out to an Indian restaurant during the 20 minute consultation on 6 February 2010.

The fitness to practise panel heard the patient’s mother, a nurse, phoned police when her daughter told her about the examination at the hands of Zaman.

The doctor, who also worked at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability, in Putney, was cleared of sexual assault by a jury after a 2011 trial at Blackfriars Crown Court.

But he is now facing the end of his career after the MPTS panel found him guilty of sexually motivated conduct at a hearing in Manchester.

Zaman does not accept the panel’s findings and said he wanted the panel to reopen the case.

‘I’m going to be crucified for a sin which I have not done at all,’ Zaman said, while claiming he had evidence to refute the panel’s findings.

He insists the examination could not have been sexually motivated because he is not attracted to black women.

But MPTS panel chairman Dr Vicki Harris told him it had no power to reopen the case and decided to move on to consider whether his actions amounted to misconduct and what sanction to impose.

Handing down the findings of fact in June she told him: ‘The panel had full regard to all the evidence in this case.

‘It found that you carried out a vaginal examination on Patient A which was not clinically indicated, during a consultation in which your demeanour made Patient A very uncomfortable.

‘You complimented her on her body; made inappropriate comments about her sexual relations with her boyfriend and smirked and laughed when she said that she was uncomfortable.

‘Additionally you have been found to have watched her undress, moved her underwear yourself and failed to offer her a chaperone before you carried out an intimate examination.

‘Further, at the conclusion of the consultation, you attempted to meet Patient A socially, retained her personal phone number and put it in your personal mobile phone.

‘The panel concluded that these actions were highly suggestive of sexual motivation.’

The panel heard that the accounting and finance student had gone to hospital suffering abdominal pain after falling ill during a shift at her part-time job in a clothes shop.

She attended the accident and emergency department and was seen by Zaman, who was working as a locum senior house officer at the time.

The medic then asked her for her phone number, which he put in his pocket, asked about her job and whether she had a current sexual partner.

He also suggested she should go to his private practice in Putney for free, even though there was no clinical reason for her to do so, the tribunal found.

Zaman then asked her to get undressed, but failed to offer her a chaperone or provide her with any privacy, it was said.

Giving evidence, Patient A said: ‘He examined around my navel, the left side and the other parts of my abdomen. That was what he examined before the internal examination.’

She continued: ‘When he was doing the internal exam my eyes were closed because I thought it was uncomfortable.

‘It was kind of embarrassing so my eyes were closed and I opened my eyes whilst it was going on and that’s when I saw he was looking at me.’

She claimed that Zaman smirked and laughed when she told him she felt uncomfortable and, referring to her boyfriend, said: ‘This isn’t the first time this has been done to you.’

Patient A added: ‘I did tell him I felt uncomfortable at the time and I was in a lot of pain and up until he said a certain comment and I realised where the consultation was going I honestly did think he was examining me.

‘From what he was saying and the way he was talking I realised that he was not examining me and by then it was too late for me to do anything.

‘It’s not in my character to make a big scene or scream.’

When he had finished the procedure he joked: ‘Everything’s fine, you’re clean.’

She said: ‘He said he would contact me and he also mentioned something about an Indian restaurant and trying to find out if I was available the next day or the day afterwards.’

Zaman vigorously denied the claims and told the panel he would not have been attracted to the patient.

Giving evidence, he said: ‘I’m not interested in that type of black girl. I have never been attracted to a black girl.

‘You can check my history. I have never been attracted to black girls.’

But the panel preferred the evidence of the complainant, finding entirely in her favour.

Zaman had been subject to a string of conditions since March 2010, one of which prevented him from conducting intimate examinations without a chaperone, except in life-threatening situations.

He was suspended from the GMC’s medical register after the panel announced its factual findings on 27 June.

The hearing continues.

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