Surgeon will not face rape retrial
A disgraced heart surgeon who groped two women at work during a campaign of ‘sexual bullying’ will not face a retrial for raping a third woman in his office.
Top consultant Mohamed Amrani, 54, is due to be sentenced next month after being convicted of attacks a decade apart on two victims at different London hospitals.
During his career Amrani 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.
The Old Bailey heard he thought no one would dare to complain about his behaviour because of his international reputation as a pioneering consultant at Harefield Hospital in west London.
One victim said she complained about Amrani touching her breasts to a hospital manager in 2003 or 2004, but was told: ‘Just ignore him, he does it to everyone.’
The other told jurors 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.
Amrani, whose wife Clare also works at Harefield, 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.
Last month jurors failed to reach a verdict on the charge of rape and acquitted Amrani of two other counts of assault by penetration against the same woman.
He was also acquitted of attacking two other women.
The jury of eight men and four women convicted him 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.
Amrani appeared in the dock of the Old Bailey to hear that the prosecution had decided not to seek a retrial on the rape charge.
His wife sat in the well of court during the short hearing.
Judge Anne Molyneux said she would sentence Amrani on 8 June after receiving a report from a probation officer.
The charges carry a maximum sentence of ten years imprisonment but the judge indicated that she was considering a non-custodial sentence.
During the trial prosecutor Peter Clement told the Old Bailey that 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.’
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 is on conditional bail.
