Surgeon escapes jail for hospital sex assaults
One of Britain’s top heart surgeons was spared jailed for molesting two women today – but his career was left in tatters.
Mohamed Amrani, 54, thought no one would dare to complain about his behaviour because of his international reputation as a pioneering consultant.
He has saved hundreds of lives and made headlines in the UK for specialising in a keyhole surgery technique to carry out heart bypasses and valve transplants.
But Amrani’s skills in the operating theatre were overshadowed by allegations of making obscene sexual comments, grabbing breasts, squeezing nipples and patting bottoms.
He groped a woman’s breasts twice at Harefield Hospital in west London in 2003, and patted another victim on the bottom at the Cromwell private hospital in Kensington in 2014.
The surgeon was accused of a series of sexual offences, but was convicted of two counts of indecent assault and one count of sexual assault following an Old Bailey trial.
He was given a six-month sentence suspended for 12 months, but he now faces being being struck off by the General Medical Council.
Judge Anne Molyneux MBE said: ‘You are 54 years of age. You are an outstandlingly good heart surgeon.
‘The court has heard form an extraordinarily high number of people, men and women, from many different backgrounds including the complainants themselves, who have given evidence of your skills.
‘You have saved lives, you have enhanced lives, you have done work which others weren’t willing to do, you have shown commitment to the NHS, you have given your time to work for charity.’
The judge described Amrani’s sex attacks in Harefield as ‘fleeting, unplanned, spontaneous outbursts’ which have left the vulnerable victim suffering from anxiety and difficulties sleeping.
‘In my view this was an abuse of power arising from the trust placed in you by the hospital,’ she added.
Judge Molyneux said he smacked the other victim’s bottom with an open hand because he felt a ‘sense of entitlement’.
She accepted that the criminal proceedings have had ‘a profound affect on you, your career, your family, and your finances’.
‘The public interest may well in favour of your operating again,’ said Judge Molyneux.
‘The court also notes the view of the probation service that a rehabilitation requirement will assist you, so in my judgement the sentence can be suspended.’
Amrani must sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for five years and he was ordered to pay £8,000 in prosecution costs and carry out 25 days of rehabilitation activities.
His barrister Stephen Vulo QC, who represented disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris, said the GMC will have the option of suspending him for just 12 months – but they could also bar him from practise for five years or erase him from the medical register permanently.
He told the court Amrani has done pro bono work in Egypt and other countries, and revealed he was offered a job in a private hospital in Morocco on the day he was convicted.
Amrani was suspended in 2015 after a woman made a formal complaint that the surgeon raped her in his office while still wearing his theatre scrubs.
He insisted that the five complainants had made up their allegations and dismissed the rape allegation as ‘pure fantasy’, but was convicted of two counts of indecent assault against one victim in Harefield and a single count of sexual assault against the other in Cromwell after a trial in April.
The jury failed to reach a verdict on the charge of rape – today (Thurs) he was formally cleared of the charge because the complainant doesn’t want to go through a retrial.
Amrani was acquitted of two other counts of assault by penetration against the same woman at the Old Bailey.
He was born in Morocco and qualified as a doctor in Belgium before coming to the UK in 1993.
Ten years later the BBC reported that he had carried out the first heart bypass operation on a conscious patient.
Then in 2006 he was again hailed for performing the UK’s first double valve transplant using keyhole surgery.
Amrani divorced his first wife the same year before marrying Clare Amrani, an aesthetic nurse practitioner he met on a trip to Egypt.
His first alleged victim claimed Amrani reached out and grabbed her breasts in an equipment room at Harefield Hospital in around 2001 or 2002.
She did not tell anyone at the time but filed a complaint to the Trust management about Armani’s general behaviour at work in 2014.
The woman told jurors it was taken no further by managers after Mr Amrani ‘rubbished the whole thing’.
She made her formal complaint in 2015 after being approached by the team investigating the alleged rape.
The second victim claimed she was sexually assaulted by Amrani on at least five occasions over a six-month period beginning in 2003.
She said Amrani first attacked her by suddenly grabbing her breasts with both hands when she went into his office.
When she reacted with shock and surprise, Amrani let out a ‘sheepish laugh’.
She claimed Amrani later ‘escalated’ his attacks, on one occasion coming up behind her and slipping his hands into her top and inside her bra.
He even groped her breasts in front of a female colleague.
She told police: ‘All I can see is her shocked face. Her eyes went open and her mouth opened and he grabbed my breasts on top of my clothes then left.
‘She said, “I can’t believe it”, and was just very shocked.’
Amrani only stopped when she shouted his name in shock after he put his hands between her legs as she sat in a swivel chair.
She said: ‘After that he never touched me again or did anything vaguely inappropriate.’
The woman said she had reported the attacks to the theatre manager Jackie Burbridge, who ‘laughed it off as if it was all part of how things were’.
She told police: ‘I can’t remember my words. I feel I made it very clear I had been assaulted by Mr Amrani.
‘Jackie said, “just ignore him, he does it to everyone”. That’s what happened.’
She added: ‘After I had reported it to her, truthfully, I felt very troubled that I had nowhere really to go.
‘What I really wanted was just for it to stop….I didn’t want to make a big fuss about it, just for it to stop because it was not showing any signs of stopping and I didn’t feel like anyone would help me to make it stop.’
She explained that she did not take the allegations any further because she felt her word against that of a consultant cardiac surgeon’s would ‘not be taken seriously’.
It was only after she was told that Amrani had attacked someone else that she decided to make a statement to police in 2015.
The third alleged victim said Amrani was ‘an absolutely brilliant surgeon’ who had helped her when her child fell ill.
But when she walked into his office on 4 September 2013 he told her: ‘You owe me for the help I gave you. Remember, you owe me’.
She claimed Amrani walked over to the door and locked it before kissing her and taking off her clothes.
She said he then sexually assaulted her with his fingers before telling her: ‘I’m going to f*** you’.
When she replied ‘please don’t do that’ he pushed her down on to a sofa and forced her to perform oral sex.
She told the court his phone rang at the end of the attack and he answered ‘hello’ before tying up his theatre ‘scrubs’ and leaving the room.
The woman added: ‘I just thought to myself at that time, “there’s no way I can report this”.’
But when she confronted him a few days later to tell him not to do it again, he replied: ‘Oh no, I was going to book a hotel.’
She said he later made a series of sexual comments and asking her: ‘What did it taste like?’
The woman made a formal complaint to the Harefield in February 2015 and Amrani was arrested in May 2015.
Two further women then came forward to say that they too had been sexually assaulted by the surgeon.
The fourth claimed Amrani jumped out her in the hospital corridor and squeezed her nipples hard in early 2014.
He later told her: ‘You do realise I will f*** you sooner or later.’
The fifth woman told how Amrani patted her on the bottom at the Cromwell private hospital in Kensington, southwest London, on 7 June 2014.
She tried to slap him across the face but he ducked.
Prosecutor Peter Clement said Armani exploited his position of ‘authority, power and trust’ for his own sexual gratification.
He said: ‘It was sexual bullying of a high order by a man confident that his seniority would ensure his targets’ silence.’
The Trust may now face questions over whether they failed to take action because of Amrani’s earning power.
Dr Ian McGovern, the Theatre Director at Harefield, admitted that Amrani was ‘considered very important to the Trust.’
He added: ‘The caseload he put through and the number of patients he operated on exceeded his colleagues by a country mile.
‘Every case we do is money for the Trust, we are penalised if we don’t get cases done. He was also very active privately and that also brings in a huge amount of money to the Trust.’
Amrani told the court that the rape complaint was ‘pure fantasy’ and that hospital records suggest it never happened.
He also claimed that he would have been wearing his suit in his office rather than scrubs because it was on a different floor of the hospital to the operating theatres.
Amrani said: ‘I have said it before and I will say it again, this is pure fantasy.’
He also rejected the other allegations.
Amrani, of Harrow, northwest London, denied one count of rape, one count of assault by penetration, six counts of indecent assault and three counts of sexual assault.
He was convicted of two counts of indecent assault against one victim in the Harefield and a single count of sexual assault against the other in the Cromwell.
