Two of three young women sexually violated by a Sydney dentist have described the harrowing impact of his crimes in emotional court scenes.
Under the guise of a mandatory skin check at his practice in Sydney’s south, 62-year-old Maged Fouad Farag told one young woman to remove her clothes and lie naked on a dental chair before touching her breasts and genitals, she told Downing Centre District Court.
Farag faced a sentence hearing on Wednesday for five sexual offences against three women across five years to 2024.
An agreed statement of facts state that Farag sucked one woman’s nipple, photographed another woman naked and used a combination of ruses such as skin checks and massages to commit his crimes.
The victims were aged 19, 21 and 25. They all moved to Australia on student visas; two were from Nepal and one was from Colombia.
As the then-18-year-old victim read her victim impact statement in court, she took regular breaks with a support person to cope with her emotions.
“This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life,” she said through tears.
‘Underneath all the fear I knew I deserved to have my voice heard.’
Victim impact statement
“Despite everything this experience took from me … I’m still here. I survived something that broke parts of me I may never fully get back … I refuse to let it silence me any more.”
The woman moved to Australia to “make something of my life”.
“I was young, independent, trying to survive in a completely different country away from the comfort of family,” she said.
“[Farag] knew I had very little support around me and he used that to his advantage.”
The assault shattered her safety, trust, education, finances, and sleep.
“After this happened, I stopped feeling safe in the world,” she said.
She suffered quietly and alone because she lacked support in Australia.
“I couldn’t allow myself to be part of the silence which allows these things to happen to others,” she said of choosing to speak out. “Because somewhere underneath all the fear I knew I deserved to have my voice heard.”
Judge John Pickering told her that she should be proud of herself, saying she “directly helped provide justice for two other women”.
‘The shame he placed on my shoulders was so heavy’
A second victim was abused at Farag’s Rockdale clinic a year after moving from Nepal at 18.
“Under the pretence of a mandatory skin check, he instructed me to remove my clothing,” she said via a victim impact statement read out by the prosecutor.
As she lay in a dental chair, he examined her body with a light and touched her breast, inner thighs, and – on a later occasion – her genitals. She found this strange but trusted him because he was a doctor.
On another occasion, he repeated these actions, but this time touched her genitals.
Fearing she wouldn’t be believed and that reporting Farag might affect her visa, she suffered in silence and did not tell any loved ones.
“The shame he placed on my shoulders was so heavy … I carried it entirely alone for years,” she wrote.
“I blamed myself for not saying ‘no’ loudly enough, for not running … I know now, intellectually, that none of this is my fault, but knowing and feeling are very different things.
“Before [the assaults], I described myself as outgoing, happy [and] loved reading,” she said, adding that she began flinching at ordinary interactions and “could not concentrate long enough to read a single page” following the violation.
She suffered suicidal thoughts, hypervigilance, severe weight loss, emotional numbness and nightmares. Her long-term relationship with her only support person in Australia crumbled.
In 2024, she saw a Google review alleging Farag committed indecent assault, prompting her to report him to police. She felt relief that others understood her pain, alongside rage that he had done this again.
“I am here now because I refuse to let him believe that what he did to me did not matter,” she said, noting “justice for a survivor is not free”.
“Farag is not a man who made a mistake … he knew what he was doing; he did it again.”
The court heard Farag was previously found guilty of aggravated indecent assault of a 17-year-old girl in 2002.
After his arrest, police seized a contract in his possession which asked for consent to “unrestricted physical contact” during sessions at his clinic. The agreement stated that anyone who did not respect confidentiality or complained to any institution or government body may be subject to fees “$500,000 or higher”.
Farag has been on bail for the current offences under home detention and a $1 million surety. He was banned from working as a dentist.
Prosecutors submitted the crimes involved significant planning with a motive of sexual gratification and were committed under fraudulent professional pretexts such as “massage techniques, physiotherapy techniques, or skin checks”.
The defence team argued Farag’s diagnosis of long-standing persistent depression contributed to his offending. Pickering was sceptical about differentiating depression that arose before or after his arrest, given it was diagnosed by a psychiatrist who saw him once two weeks ago.
That psychiatrist put Farag’s reoffending risk at “below average”.
Farag pleaded guilty to five counts of aggravated non-consensual sexual touching, with one count of intentionally record an intimate image without consent taken into account.
He will be sentenced next week.
Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) or the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
