'Calculated': Former Ont. doctor sentenced to 9 years after 13 female patients sexually assaulted
CTV
Once the only doctor in a small town in southern Ontario, a former family physician has been sentenced to nine years in jail after he was found to have sexually assaulted more than a dozen female patients at his York region clinic.
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Once the only doctor in a small town in southern Ontario, a former physician has been sentenced to nine years in jail after he was found to have sexually assaulted more than a dozen female patients at his York Region clinic.
On Thursday, Justice Jill Cameron sentenced Wameed Ateyah, 52, to nine years, less five days, at the Newmarket Superior Court of Justice after he was found guilty in September of sexually assaulting 13 female patients.
The assaults took place between 2008 and 2017, when Ateyah was the only practicing family physician and the only doctor offering walk-in clinic services in the village of Schomberg, Ont., the decision reads.
The first complaint made by a patient regarding the physician's conduct was to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) in 2016, eventually resulting in a requirement he have a practice monitor, or chaperone, present in the room with him when he examined patients.
In 2020, York police laid a total of 28 charges on Ateyah as part of an investigation launched after two female patients came forward to the service with allegations of sexual assault, they said.
“It is impossible to summarize the magnitude of suffering that has occurred because of Dr. Ateyah's actions,” the judge wrote in the decision. ”The complainants have suffered in many ways. Their trust in medical professionals has been eroded.”
