"both times had been on purpose."
A senior NHS doctor has been suspended after he was caught groping a female colleague whilst carrying out a medical procedure.
Consultant Gastroenterologist and Hepatologist Dr Narendra Kochar told the woman:
“You are so beautiful, very very beautiful. Oh I like you.”
He then proceeded to repeatedly touch her breast while she helped him treat a patient.
In 2020, Dr Kochar was accused of sexually assaulting three female patients when he was working at Manchester Royal Infirmary.
He was cleared of six sexual assault charges after claiming his treatment of them was “completely faultless”.
Earlier in 2023, Dr Kochar faced accusations that he rubbed his erect penis against a fourth patient during an examination at a hospital in Edinburgh in 2008.
He was cleared of wrongdoing after he claimed she had made the allegation out of anger for reducing her pethidine medication.
The colleague, known as Ms A, works at a hospital in Ipswich.
After being molested, she researched Dr Kochar and found he had been made subject of workplace conditions.
She initially told a consultant surgeon she would never work with him again. When she saw a new rota had paired them up in October 2021, she lodged a formal complaint.
At the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service, the incident involving Ms A happened in July 2021.
Ms A was helping the senior doctor carry out colonoscopies on various patients when he whispered in her ear and put his left hand under her right elbow, touching her right breast.
He groped her again after removing his hand from the patient’s abdomen.
In a statement, Ms A said: “At first I thought he was talking about the patient’s bowel as he was performing the procedure but as he said the comments a couple of more times during the day I knew he was talking to me.
“With his left hand, he came under my right elbow touching my right breast and then moved his hand down to the patient’s abdomen.
“When he removed his hand he again grazed my right breast as he pulled away.
“Again I thought maybe it was a mistake and it could have happened by accident and that Dr Kochar had not noticed that he touched my breast.
“I positioned myself on an angle so that he could avoid my breast, but he used his left hand to go under my right elbow and touched my right breast as he moved down my arm to the patient’s abdomen.
“He also touched my right breast when he moved his hand back to carry on the colonoscopy.
“I knew that touching on my breast for a second time was not an accident and both times had been on purpose.”
The doctor denied wrongdoing and told the hearing he may have been talking to himself, or commenting on the equipment he was using.
He suggested that any physical contact would have been accidental.
Dr Kochar stated: “I firmly deny that any of my interactions with Ms A were sexually motivated.
“I am nevertheless sorry if anything I said or did made her feel uncomfortable, or gave her the wrong impression.
“Since the events in question, I have reflected on how my own behaviour might have led to Ms A misinterpreting events, and I have made a point of being more careful to ensure that personal and physical boundaries are respected when I am at work.”
Laura Barbour, counsel for the GMC, said:
“Dr Kochar, in a place of work, engaged in sexual touching of a hard-working colleague.
“He sought to disguise the sexually motivated touching of a colleague’s breast under the cover of a legitimate clinical demonstration as part of his work and this makes his conduct worse.
“The sexual touching of a colleague whilst a patient is mid-procedure is so egregious that public confidence in the profession would surely be damaged if a finding of impairment was not made.
“Sexual misconduct is not easily remediated and there is no evidence that Dr Kochar has, in fact, remediated.
“There is no evidence Dr Kochar has genuinely reflected on his failures or his actions or that he has developed genuine insight.”
Anthony Haycroft, Dr Kochar’s counsel, said the incident was at the “lower end of the spectrum” and any contact was “fleeting over clothes with the back of a gloved hand, taking seconds only and amounting to a single isolated incident”.
He added: “The conduct found proved was spontaneous and carried out under the stress of working under the Covid conditions.
“It was an opportunistic touching, no more, no less.”
“Testimonials submitted, evidence no character flaw or propensity for such misconduct on the part of Dr Kochar.
“It would be wrong to equate the denial of an allegation with lack of insight. In fact, Dr Kochar had apologised to Ms A.”
MPTS chairperson Angela Georgiou said:
“The many testimonials the tribunal received from friends and colleagues of Dr Kochar spoke in glowing terms of a highly respected, well-regarded and outstanding clinician and colleague.
“Many spoke of their disbelief regarding the allegations Dr Kochar was facing and accordingly the Tribunal considered there to be a low risk of repetition in this case.
“The Tribunal acknowledged Dr Kochar is a highly valued member of his team and his patients benefit from his skills.
“Erasing Dr Kochar from the register would deprive the public of an otherwise excellent doctor.”
The married doctor was found guilty of sexually motivated misconduct and suspended from medical practice for six months.
He will face a return-to-work review in 2024 after the panel rejected calls for the General Medical Council to strike him off – concluding there was a “low risk” of him repeating his behaviour.
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