Jailed GP who travelled 100 Miles to Rape Girl Struck Off
A GP who travelled 100 miles to rape a 10-year-old girl has been struck off the medical register.
Rupesh Seth was jailed for over three years in March 2023.
His behaviour was ruled to be “fundamentally incompatible with being a doctor”.
A medical tribunal panel said Seth’s actions were “deplorable”, with a ban on working in medicine the only way to “sufficiently protect, promote and maintain the health, safety and wellbeing of the public” and keep up public confidence in the profession.
The 39-year-old was arrested in 2020 after travelling from Dorset to Egham to meet an adult in order to sexually abuse the adult’s daughter.
Police said subsequent searches of his phones uncovered child sexual abuse imagery.
GMC representative Georgina Goring said the GP’s actions “did not involve a single act but related to conduct which took place over a prolonged period, reflecting serious behavioural and attitudinal issues”.
The panel was told that Seth used encrypted chat programmes to discuss child sex abuse and arranged the girl’s rape with a man he met online.
However, the man was actually an undercover officer.
The 41 indecent images on Seth’s two phones included 27 at the most depraved level of category A.
Seth, who qualified at the University of Birmingham in 2008, told officers he “had developed an addiction to indecent images of children and needed help”.
Seth was jailed for 39 months after admitting to trying to arrange and facilitate the commission of a child sex offence and three counts of making indecent images of children.
The MPTS said his ban on practising medicine would be immediate.
Detective Constable Andy Grimwood, of Surrey Police, said Seth’s arrest came after a joint investigation between the force’s Paedophile Online Investigations Team and the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit.
He said:
“Thankfully, during this investigation, there was never a real-life victim and no children were ever in danger.”
After Seth’s sentencing, NHS Dorset said the GP “previously worked in a number of health settings across Dorset”, including at “GP practices in and around Bournemouth along with placements at local hospitals before his arrest”.
It said there was no evidence patients were put at risk.
The trust’s chief nursing officer Debbie Simmons said at the time:
“Every child has the right to grow up safe from harm.
“The actions of Dr Seth are inexcusable.”