Doctor, 37, accused of touching nurses at Shropshire hospital

Mahendar Kumar Katarapu, 37, is alleged to have touched the chest and thigh of one junior doctor and the chest and bottom of two nurses.

A jury at Shrewsbury Crown Court was told yesterday that it was claimed Katarapu had deliberately got close to the victims for his own sexual gratification.

Katarapu, of Edgecombe Way, Shrewsbury, denies seven allegations of sexual assault involving four women between August 2016 and March last year.

Mr Stephen Thomas, prosecuting, said Katarapu, who worked on a general ward, had no professional reason to be in areas where the victims worked.

"It appears he devoted a lot of time when he should have been looking after patients to thinking about getting close to female staff at the hospital where he worked," he said.

One of the victims, a physician in her 30s, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, told the jury she became aware of the defendant's whereabouts, but did not know his name.

She said that on one occasion she saw him watching her before pulling a chair up to where she was working.

"He was next to me and really close. He put his hand was on my left thigh. Nothing was said. I was shocked. It was more than accidental brushing," she said.

She said it was several minutes before he moved away and he had no reason to be in the area where she worked.

"A few weeks later he had again pulled up a chair and leaned on my left side. He had all his weight against me," she said.

"There was no professional reason for him to be there. I pushed my chair back and stood up and he stood up," she said.

The witness claimed that as she went to move he had put his groin in front of her.

"It was not accidental. I walked out. I was shocked and disgusted," she told the jury.

In February last year she made a complaint to her NHS bosses and later went to the police after another incident in an office.

"He made a beeline towards me and made a weird, fake stumble and I felt his hand on my chest. It was an open-handed touch and it was lingering. I was shocked," she said.

Mr Thomas told the court that on the same day the defendant is alleged to have touched another female junior doctor on her bare arm and that it was both deliberate and sexual.

On three other occasions it is alleged the defendant had 'engineered' himself into a position to touch the chest of a nurse as she used a printer and had touched the chest and stroked the bottom of another health worker as she stood near a filing cabinet.

The four alleged victims were later to pick out the defendant to police in a photo-identification process.

The trial continues.