GP convicted of 12 sex assaults on male patients

A former GP from Canterbury has been found guilty of a number of sexual offences on male patients, including two teenage boys, across almost two decades.

Gregory Manson, 56, committed the offences between 1994 and 2017 while examining male patients' genitals in his capacity as a GP, the jury was told during his trial.

Manson, who denied all the charges, told Canterbury Crown Court that his medical examinations were "not sexually motivated at all".

He will be sentenced on Friday, with Judge Simon Taylor KC warning Manson to expect a custodial term.

The former GP was charged with 24 offences overall. Of those, he was convicted by majority verdict of 12 sexual assaults and four indecent assaults against nine males.

He was found not guilty of six offences, and two others were alternative charges which did not require verdicts.

During the trial, prosecutor Jennifer Knight KC said "many examinations he performed were not medically justified".

"In truth Dr Manson took frequent opportunities to examine patients' genitals, not because he needed to but because he wanted to," she said.

Manson's earliest two victims were brothers, and he was their doctor before and after they were 16, the court heard.

The older brother's medical notes suggests that he was seen 11 times between the ages of 14 and 19, and he said he remembered his genitals being examined on "over half" of those visits.

The first complaint of sexual assault against Manson was filed in 2017, followed by an NHS England exercise which saw more alleged victims come forward.

Manson told jurors that his motivation was to rule out rare diseases which he had misdiagnosed in the past.

Jurors heard during the trial that Ian Wall, a professor of forensic medicine and GP, was "surprised" that Manson considered testicular examination part of a new patient check.

Manson was found to have taken limited notes on these examinations, which he denied was an attempt to hide his offending.

Following his conviction, Will Bodiam from the Crown Prosecution Service said Manson abused the trust between GP and patient "in an appalling way".

"They described their discomfort at what happened to them and some of them actively tried to avoid seeing Manson because of their previous experiences with him," Mr Bodiam added.

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