Michael Salmon trial: Ex-doctor 'indecently assaulted girls' at Stoke Mandeville Hospital

A former doctor took advantage of his position as consultant and allegedly assaulted young girls in a room screened off from their parents or while the adults were outside the room. a jury has been told.

Michael Salmon is facing 16 charges, which include rape, indecent assault and arranging an abortion for a young girl he raped.

Salmon, 79, who denies all charges was a former consultant at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, where Jimmy Savile allegedly assaulted patients.

He was arrested in November 2013 under Operation Yewtree in the wake of the Savile scandal.

At Reading Crown Court on 6 January, the jury was told the charges related to eight girls, the youngest aged 11.

Presenting the prosecution case, Miranda Moore QC told Reading Crown Court Salmon would fondle, internally examine when "there was no medical need" and in some cases rape his patients.

"In one case, he used a girl's distress to offer to undertake an illegal abortion and raped her in the aftermath, at the same time," she added.

Salmon, from Salisbury, Wiltshire, who has pleaded not guilty, declared his accusers "gold diggers".

Moore said Salmon's offences were coincidental in terms of the timing of the Saville's assaults at the hospital in the 1970s and 1980s.

"There might be the odd passing reference but there's no suggestion that this defendant abused a young female patient in concert with Jimmy Savile," she said.

"It's simply that these allegations relate to a time when the other things were happening."

Salmon was struck off the medical register in 1991 after admitting three cases of indecent assaults at the hospital.

The trial continues.