Dirty doctor could die in jail
A perverted GP who thought he was ‘untouchable’ as he molested women and girls during sexually motivated intimate examinations over the course of two decades is facing jail.
Alan Tutin, 71, groped women at the Merrow Park Practice in Guildford, Surrey, between 1980 and late 2004.
He sexually assaulted the patients ‘under the guise of breast examinations or vaginal examinations’.
The doctor squeezed a patient’s breasts in a ‘really immature Benny Hill way’ as if they were ‘a couple of melons’.
Tutin also left a community midwife feeling ‘dirty and violated’ during a medical check required by her insurance company.
The doctor previously twice stood trial accused of similar allegations but neither resulted in any convictions.
But he was later struck off for abusing five patients for his own sexual gratification by the GMC in 2009.
He strenuously denied the latest claims, insisting: ‘I have always tried to do my best for patients throughout my career.’
Louise Sweet, QC, defending, said the most recent investigation followed ‘publicity and intense gossip of a salacious and poisonous nature’ in the wake of the earlier trials.
She claimed Tutin’s accusers were simply ‘misunderstanding’ or ‘misremembering’ what happened to them.
She urged the jury not jump on the ‘there’s no smoke without fire bandwagon’.
Jurors took almost 42 hours to convict Tutin of assaulting against 15 victims following a nine-week trial at the Old Bailey.
He was cleared of seven counts of indecent assault and one of assault by penetration, but the jury were unable to return verdicts on five charges of indecent assault.
Tutin will be sentenced at the Old Bailey this Friday after facing retrial on three counts of indecent assault at Blackfriars Crown Court and being cleared of all of them.
Two allegations of indecent assault were ordered to lie on file.
The case can now be reported after Judge Nigel Peters QC, lifted reporting restrictions following the latest verdicts.
Tutin was remanded in custody ahead of sentence back at the Old Bailey on Friday (17)
He qualified as a doctor in 1974 and spent the next few years doing hospital jobs in general medicine.
Tutin then moved into general practice and after completing his year as a trainee GP, spent a year in a practice in Essex before joining the Merrow Park Practice in Guildford in 1980.
He remained a partner there for over 25 years, initially as a junior partner and then as senior partner.
His wife Angela was also a GP there and they and their four children lived in Hillier Road, Guildford.
‘It seems that Alan Tutin ran the financial side of the practice and was undoubtedly someone who wielded a lot of influence,’ said Sally O’Neill, QC, prosecuting.
‘He appears to have had quite a dominant personality and perhaps a somewhat arrogant and brusque way of dealing with both patients and staff.
‘He may also have been somewhat old-fashioned in his approach to patients and did not explain to them all the time what he was doing before he did it and why it was necessary.’
She added: ‘He may have felt himself to be untouchable and unchallengeable at the time because of his position both in the practice and in society and no doubt, you will want to bear in mind that things have changed over the years in relation to how a doctor should conduct himself towards a patient.’
Tutin was cleared of sexually abusing other women following two trials in 1999, then cleared of inappropriately examining eight women in routine check-ups after a General Medical Council hearing in 2001.
Two years later another woman came forward with a complaint and Tutin was eventually arrested in 2006 after more allegations were made.
One of his victims was 17 when she went to see Tutin to be prescribed the pill between 1981 and 1983.
She told jurors Tutin used both hands to rub her breasts and tugged on her nipples during the ‘uncomfortable, creepy, horrible’ appointment.
In 1984 or 85, an insurance company required a midwife at the practice to have a medical.
Tutin used ‘totally inappropriate language’ when he told her to ‘get her kit off’ and commented on the size of her breasts.
The midwife said she ‘felt dirty and violated’ and afterwards told two of her colleagues while she was in tears.
Another woman described feeling ‘mortified, embarrassed and ashamed’ when the GP groped her whilst she was a teenager after going to see him for something innocuous like a wart on her foot.
The court heard how another woman went to see Tutin in around 1986 when she was 19 only to be groped by the doctor who used both hands to squeeze her breasts simultaneously.
Another teenager described how Tutin molested her when she was 15.
She said the GP grabbed her breasts whilst supposedly checking for appendicitis.
Tutin ’embarrassed’ a 16-year-old girl who went to see him in 1994 when he appeared to be ‘feeling’ her breasts up instead of checking for lumps as he claimed.
Another woman told jurors Tutin cupped her breast when she was just 12 after asking her to remove her top when she came in to see him over a head cold.
In 1995 or 1996 Tutin abused a 26-year-old woman during a vaginal exam by suddenly withdrawing the same hand and sliding it under her clothing and onto her breast.
A 26-year-old woman told police how Tutin panted as he shoved his hand inside her bra for ‘a good handful and a feel’ of her breast before rubbing her vagina up and down during an intimate exam in 1996.
The GP squeezed a patient’s breasts in a ‘really immature Benny Hill way’ as though they were ‘a couple of melons’ when she was in her early twenties, between 1996 and 1999.
Ms O’Neill said: ‘She is not now sure whether she also removed her bra but she does recall that he then touched her breasts with both hands, fondling and squeezing them in what she described as a really immature “Benny Hill” way as though he was feeling a couple of melons.’
Tutin was using both hands simultaneously and gave no explanation for the examination.
The victim believed there may have been at least two other times when he did the same before she changed doctors.
An air hostess in her mid-twenties reported how the ‘smirking’ doctor scooped one of her breasts out of her bra and appeared to be ‘staring’ at them during an appointment for a renewal of her contraceptive pill in 1999.
A 46-year-old woman was fondled during a breast exam after she lost her voice in 1999.
Tutin ‘tried to stimulate’ another patient in her early thirties during breast and vaginal examinations later that same year.
He behaved in a similar way towards another patient, in her mid-forties, during an internal examination also in 1999, only stopping when she cried out that he was hurting her.
An 18-year-old girl told police she was made to feel embarrassed after Tutin groped her breasts during a check-up in 2003.
The GP was struck off the medical register by the GMC in 2009 for abusing five patients in similar circumstances.
Another police investigations was opened in 2013 in which 10,000 letters were sent to former patients.
Ms Sweet referred to this ‘awful part of Dr Tutin’s life’ when the first allegations were made which, she reminded jurors, ‘he came out of completely exonerated’.
‘This investigation postdates publicity and intense gossip of a salacious and poisonous nature,’ she continued.
Tutin told jurors: ‘I totally deny that I have sexually assaulted any patient.
‘I have always tried to do my best for patients throughout my career.’
His wife said the allegations had left her husband feeling ‘suicidal’.
‘It’s been absolutely horrendous,’ she said.
‘His self-esteem has plummeted to almost nil and he has become very badly depressed from it all.
‘It has become very difficult at home and at the surgery. At times he has become suicidal.
‘All he ever wanted was to be a doctor. He had to fight to do that, and when he became a doctor he wanted to be the best doctor.
‘He was very thorough during examinations but if you’re no thorough, you don’t find anything.’
Tutin, of Tonbridge, Kent, denied 27 counts of indecent assault and one of assault by penetration.
He was convicted of 15 indecent assaults and cleared of ten while two counts will lie on file.
Tutin was also found not guilty of assault by penetration.
He will be sentenced at the Old Bailey this Friday.
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