A surgeon has been found not guilty of assaulting one of his patients in a hospital car park.

Mr Puthur Damodaran, 41, an orthopaedic surgeon, stood trial this week accused of sexually assaulting a woman in her 20s in Leatherhead Hospital car park, in Poplar Road, last July.

A jury of six men and six women returned a not guilty verdict yesterday afternoon at the end of a four-day trial at Guildford Crown Court.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, suffered from long-standing back pain.

She had an appointment with Mr Damodaran who examined her but did not give back MRI scan results that she had been hoping for.

The patient was therefore left feeling upset over the delayed results as she left the hospital.

The prosecution accused Mr Damodaran of following the distressed woman back to her car, getting inside and then sexually assaulting her under the guise of a re-examination.

But the jury accepted Mr Damodaran's explanation that he had neither sexually assaulted or re-examined the woman in the car and had only got in briefly to comfort her verbally.

He told the court that he saw her looking upset at the hospital entrance and checked if she was feeling OK before they walked back to their parked cars together.

He said he tried to make her feel better, gave advice, put his own bag into his car and then checked to see if she had recovered but found her still teary.

He said: "Looking back I thought it was an error of judgement, I should not have entered the car. My main aim was to give her comfort and it was a momentary judgement."

He added: "I have never experienced this before. It was the first time I had seen a patient crying in the car park. I felt sorry for her."

He said that he only spoke to the woman for a few minutes in the car. He said: "I was tired after 36 hours of duty and my aim was to go home."

Mr Damodaran, from Horley, is on the fellows and members list of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

 

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