The Brussels Court of Appeal on Friday sentenced an emergency doctor to five years' imprisonment for sexually assaulting three female patients and ordered his immediate detention.
The criminal court had sentenced the suspect to three years' imprisonment in June 2022.
The investigation began in September 2017. A young woman who had been drugged without her knowledge and fainted at a party went to the emergency room with her sister. The emergency doctor asked the latter to leave the room before examining the victim, without surgical gloves.
According to the victim, the doctor "sensually" touched her breasts and private parts, before penetrating her with his fingers. He also kissed her breast, then descended again with his hands and mouth. The young woman immediately alerted her sister, who was sitting within hailing distance.
The police arrested the doctor that same evening, and investigations revealed that this was not his first offence since he had sexually assaulted another patient two weeks earlier. The doctor was conditionally released. He then moved to Arlon, Luxembourg Province, where he started working in a new hospital. There, he immediately assaulted a third woman.
The Brussels Criminal Court sentenced the man to three years' imprisonment in June 2022 for the acts perpetrated in the capital, but acquitted him of those committed in Arlon.
However, the Brussels Court of Appeal found that acts he committed in Luxembourg had also been proven. It therefore sentenced him to a five-year prison term, including a one-year suspended sentence.
