[News] British doctor jailed for secretly filming women having sex and taking showers using a tiny camera hidden in an electric toothbrush, is struck off medical register

 

A porn addict doctor who was jailed for secretly filming women having sex and taking showers through a tiny camera hidden in a toothbrush has been struck off the medical register.

 

Dr Vinesh Godhania, from Norwich, accessed pornographic and other sexually explicit websites more than 19,400 times over an 11-month period between January and November 2020, Mail Online report.

 

Evidence also found he hacked into victims’ iCloud-based accounts to steal intimate and sexual images to trade and post online.

 

The victims included a patient filmed at Basildon Hospital and a further 17 people using bathrooms and toilets at his homes, while Dr Godhania also stole data from the iCloud accounts of more than 100 individuals  including 23 colleagues.

 

He ‘purchased technological equipment’ and used a small camera hidden in an electronic toothbrush in a bathroom to film housemates and visitors to his home in Essex.

 

The offences spanned his entire medical career from 2012, when he was still a medical student, through to 2020.

 

Dr Godhania was arrested in November 2020 after cyber crime officers became aware he had been paying fees to use a data breach search engine. He admitted seven counts of recording a person doing a private act and eight counts of causing a computer to perform function with intent to secure/enable unauthorised access at West and Central Hertfordshire Magistrates’ Court in August last year.

 

He was subsequently sentenced to two years and eight months’ imprisonment and made subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years at St Albans Crown Court in November 2021.

 

The doctor has now also been struck off the medical register following a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service hearing on June 23.

 

A panel heard that Dr Godhania qualified in 2012 and worked in various hospitals before leaving the profession to begin working at his parents’ tobacconist shop in 2018.

 

During his eight years as a doctor, he used a ‘combination of surreptitiously placed cameras in the bathrooms and toilets of the homes he has lived in’ to film women having sex, taking showers and using the bathroom.

 

The tribunal heard that the victims included one member of the public filmed at a hospital, professional colleagues and 17 identified victims of voyeurism at Dr Godhania’s homes.

 

One victim impact statement, included in the panel’s report, read: ‘When you go to hospital you are very vulnerable, you naturally trust the professionals dealing with you and certainly do not expect this violation.

 

‘I feel uncomfortable and unfortunately this incident will change my view of people in a position of trust and will stay with me for a long time.

 

‘I believe I will be more cautious and anxious in the future when dealing with people on a similar basis, especially when sharing information with others.’

 

The tribunal heard that Dr Godhania’s offending behaviour was ‘ongoing for a minimum of eight years and increased in seriousness over time’.

 

In a letter to his sentencing judge, the doctor said his ‘compulsive viewing of pornography had begun over 20 years ago’.

 

He also told probation services that he was aware he had issues since the age of 16 and described the problems as ‘addiction’, but had made no attempt to seek help.

 

Passing its ruling, panel chair Melissa Coutino said Dr Godhania ‘abused his position of trust’ and that his actions were ‘pre-planned, deliberate and sophisticated and went on for many years’.