A world-renowned heart surgeon has been spared jail for molesting two women after a judge said it may be in the public interest for him to operate again.
Mohamed Amrani, 54, was found guilty in April this year of twice groping a woman's breasts through her clothes at the Harefield Hospital between 2003 and 2004.
A decade later, in 2014, he smacked another woman's bottom at Bupa's private Cromwell Hospital in Kensington.
The consultant has performed a string of life-saving operations around the world and hit the headlines in 2007 when he performed the UK's first double heart valve replacement using keyhole surgery.
Judge Anne Molyneux described him as an "outstandingly good heart surgeon" as she sentenced him to six months imprisonment, suspended for a year, at the Old Bailey on Thursday (June 8).
She told Amrani: "You have saved lives, you have done work others were not willing to do, you have shown commitment to the NHS, you have given time to work for charity."
The court heard Amrani, of Harrow in west London, has been suspended since 2015, and now faces disciplinary action from his professional body, the GMC, where he could be struck off.
His barrister, Stephen Vullo QC, said Amrani has been offered a job in Morocco, where GMC restrictions do not apply, adding he hoped he would receive a suspension with the prospect of returning to work in the UK.
The judge said "the public interest may well be in favour of your operating again", as she concluded a suspended sentence could be imposed.
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