51 year-old neurosurgeon Nafees Hamid of the Queen Elizabeth and Priory hospitals was jailed for 16 years after a horrific breach of the Birmingham community's trust. The well-respected doctor was found guilty of multiple counts of sexual assault on vulnerable female patients.
The award-winning specialist neurosurgeon had already been found guilty of nine incidents of sexual abuse between 2012 and 2013, with more cases coming to light since: “I was terrified and froze to the spot” the first of Hamid's victims to come forward, a 26 year-old woman, told the Birmingham Mail. “I felt like a little child, powerless to do anything (…) My whole body went numb and I couldn’t move (…) it lasted about five minutes…then I put my trousers back on whilst he signed the MRI scan authority form. That’s when he said 'you’re a sweet girl.”
The young lady came in to the Priory Hospital for a back examination in which “Nothing at all, anything at all was aimed with the problem with” her back. She went on to say that the experience left her scarred and it felt mandatory to call the police despite feeling 'terrified' that she would “not be taken seriously”. An important official in the investigation Detective Inspector Ian Ingram praised her actions saying: “She went home, spoke to her family, and straightaway contacted the police.”
Though Hamid denied all charges, claiming that all intimate examinations were medically sound, it was decided through independent medical opinion that 'it was sexual assault.'
The brave 26 year-old victim has said “Now, I pity him, if anything. He had a fantastic career, he had family. I feel sorry for his family. What a horrendous thing to have to go through (…) he could have helped so many people but he chose through his power of trust to ruin it for himself”. This case is another step forward for women socially, happening alongside the recent civil injunction ruling that prevented the sexual exploitation of a teenage girl from a pre-emptive position.
