A doctor was found guilty of sexually assaulting patients. But he can still work as a GP

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

Just after midday on October 17, 2022, a police officer walked into the Wallace Street Medical Centre in Braidwood for what should have been a routine pap smear. What happened next changed her life, and exposed flaws in how the system handles dangerous doctors.

At the end of prior visits, Deepak Shadilal Puri had given the woman “bear hugs”. When she once told him during a casual conversation she was not very good at choosing men, he replied she needed “a rich doctor”. The officer also gave evidence Puri kissed her on the lips and said “this only happens around you”.

During the October 17 visit, his behaviour escalated. Puri did not leave the room as his patient undressed. He asked if she minded if he performed an internal examination after the pap smear. She said, “no, do what you have to do”, but said she was in a vulnerable position and did not feel she could say no.

He used one or two fingers to conduct that examination. She said after finishing, he told her he’d seen “a lot of vaginas and yours is really very nice”.

The procedure left the woman profoundly disturbed, and she reported it to the NSW Police and Health Care Complaints Commission.

“I feel like life is now something that happens to me and not something I can influence,” the woman told the NSW District Court this week. She said her health and welfare had been altered beyond recognition. “I have struggled with the gross betrayal – the broken trust of – a professional who used his position for his own gratification.”

Two-and-a-half years before the Braidwood assault, a 20-year-old woman had her own awful encounter with Puri, this time at the Leeton Medical Centre in the NSW Riverina region.

During that appointment, Puri asked his patient whether it was difficult being in contact with customers in her job because she was “a good-looking young person”.

She went to the GP because she had been having fevers, chills and headaches. She explained to the court she told Puri she could not be pregnant because she was not sexually active, but he proceeded to conduct an internal vaginal examination.

NSW Police charged Puri over both incidents and a jury found him guilty of two counts of aggravated sexual intercourse without consent. Each of the charges carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.

The jury found him not guilty of the aggravated sexual assault of a third patient in 2019, and not guilty of sexual touching involving a fourth.

The Crown alleged Puri was seeking sexual gratification when he conducted internal vaginal examinations on the women in Braidwood and Leeton. The NSW District Court this week heard it might be the first case those present could think of involving a “dual purpose” – in other words, a doctor sexually assaulting someone during a procedure he had arguable medical grounds to perform.

Puri’s barrister, Margaret Cunneen, SC, invoked that element to make the case for a light sentence.

“There’s no flavour of a doctor who uses his position to do things under any pretext or guise to manipulate or to deceive the patients into doing something that’s not required,” she told a sentencing hearing.

Cunneen claimed the jury, “in effect like the old-fashioned Catholics, thought that Dr Puri must have had an impure thought because he was friendly with [the patient] and told her that she was a lovely woman and all that kind of thing.”

“There was no erect penis,” she said at another point. “No physical manifestation of anything sexual.”

The defence argument upset the Braidwood victim, who left the court visibly distressed.

In a victim impact statement delivered an hour earlier, the woman said her trauma had been compounded by the time it had taken for Puri to be found guilty and a tribunal allowing him to continue treating patients despite facing serious sexual assault charges.

“Justice has come at an extreme price. I have been further injured by the court process; re-exposed not only to the offender and what he did to me, but laid bare and left feeling vulnerable by a pitiless court system.”

The NSW Medical Council was warned about Puri in October 2022 and looked into the allegations but initially decided to take no action.

It was not until charges were laid by police over the same allegations in March 2023 that the Medical Council convened a second meeting and finally suspended his registration in June that year.

The Medical Council argued a total suspension was needed to maintain public trust in doctors and the health system. It said the concerns about Puri’s behaviour had the potential to diminish the public’s confidence in the medical profession and the industry’s regulators.

However, Puri appealed to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal and was granted a stay of the suspension. While he was banned from prescribing, consulting, examining, treating or performing any procedures on women or any patient under the age of 18, he was able to continue seeing other patients.

Leeton Medical Centre practice manager Donna Hillier told the tribunal the regional town needed doctors.

“If allowed to practise, the applicant would be employed at the clinic she manages, where patients are waiting two to three weeks to see a practitioner of their choice or four to six weeks depending on the practitioner,” the tribunal judgment noted.

It is not known whether Puri has been treating patients since the guilty verdicts were handed down this year; however, he remains a listed practitioner on the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency register.

Puri’s Braidwood victim said she was disgusted his registration had not yet been torn up.

A NSW Medical Council spokesperson said it was aware of the court decision but “not privy to any details around the decision or the court proceedings, including evidence given”.

The spokesperson said a guilty verdict for a criminal offence does not automatically trigger the suspension of a medical practitioner’s registration.

They also said it was up to the Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) to seek to cancel a practitioner’s registration through the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

“We can’t comment on what may ultimately happen to any practitioner’s registration because this depends on whatever regulatory process takes place in relation to that practitioner. We also can’t confirm whether the council is managing any current matters in relation to Dr Puri because strict confidentiality obligations under the national law prevent us from doing so.”

The spokesperson confirmed Puri is still “currently registered to work as a medical practitioner”.

The HCCC has been contacted for comment. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners would not answer questions about whether Puri was still a fellow of the professional association.

Puri will be sentenced in early December. He has filed a notice of intention to appeal the guilty verdicts.