Trainee doctor is jailed for sex assault on child

OFFENCE TOOK PLACE AT CITY NHS SURGERY

- TED DAVENPORT

A TRAINEE doctor has been jailed for sexually assaulting a young girl during a medical examination at an NHS surgery in Plymouth.

Dr Gary Lawrence had a secret attraction to young children and was separately caught by a police undercover operation in which he sent explicit fantasies about child sex to a decoy officer on a chat site.

Lawrence, aged 53, retrained as a doctor in his 40s. He was working at the clinic in Plymouth as one of the final stages of his training when he assaulted the child in 2021. The girl’s mother was present at the examination and realized that there was no proper medical reason for Lawrence to touch her daughter’s genitals.

A judge at Exeter Crown Court yesterday praised the mother for helping to bring Lawrence to justice, and apologized for the delay of more than two years since the crime was committed in June 2021.

Recorder Mr Donald Tait jailed Lawrence for eight and a half years and told him: “It is hard to conceive a more flagrant and serious breach of trust than this.”