Consultant is jailed for four years for sexual assaults on military recruits

A former consultant cardiologist and director of medicine at Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey has been jailed for four years for sexual assaults on seven young male military recruits during naked examinations.

Neil Ineson, 62, a former army colonel, was examining the men as part of a contract between Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust and the Ministry of Defence.

He was convicted of 11 offences after a trial in April 2017, but the details could not be reported sooner because he faced a further trial. A reporting ban was lifted after the jury at that trial cleared him of a further sexual offence.

The jury at his April 2017 trial heard that he had sexually abused young members of the Household Cavalry and the RAF between 2008 and 2014, asking them to strip naked and touching their genitals.

Opening the trial, prosecutor Alexander Williams told the jury, “This case concerns sexual touching of male patients by a hospital cardiologist, this defendant, who would ostensibly take their pulse in the area of the groin as part of a medical examination.

“The defendant is a senior consultant cardiologist and a former army colonel. He has sexually touched seven male patients, all young servicemen, during medical examinations. Some of the patients were touched once, others were touched on more than one occasion, in a sexual way.”

Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust said that Ineson was suspended as soon as the first accusation was brought to its attention in November 2014. The trust said that it had reviewed its policy in relation to intimate medical examinations to ensure that chaperones were present regardless of the sex of the patient and clinician.