Young patient’s ‘lucky escape’ from paedophile doctor

A recent mugshot of Michael Salmon, and below, pictured in 1990

Last week Salmon, 80, who was a leading paediatrician based at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for the rape and sexual assault of six girls aged between 12 and 18.

A former patient, now in her fourties, who we have agreed not to identify, told how she used to dread her annual trip to the doctor, who was treating her for a congenital heart murmur.

She said: “I started seeing him when I was about eight or nine.

“I used to get this really uncomfortable feeling around him, and it became worse when I started to develop.

“He would say things like ‘you’re growing up aren’t you’ and would touch my breasts as he did the examination, and ‘feel for a pulse’ by touching the inside of my thigh’.

“My mum would come with me, he was very creative in the way he did the touching, and he really hoodwinked her.”

She added: “He was very charming and I think he wore a bowtie, when we used to come into the consultation room he would give us both a kiss.

“I remember thinking it was a bit odd but it was just the way he was, he would ask me how I was doing at school and I really didn’t like going.”

The woman said she was relieved when she was able to stop seeing Salmon aged 16.

But in the late eighties her mother was contacted by police who were investigating Salmon for indecent assault. The investigation led to the doctor being jailed for three years and struck off in 1990.

The woman said: “My mum was contacted the first time they put him away. She spoke to me about it and gave a statement, but we didn’t hear anything after that.

“When I found out he was sent to jail again I was really pleased, but I think it is disgusting that he still received an NHS pension until this time.

“He is a really creepy man, and what is has done to other patients is absolutely awful, there must have been hundreds more.

“I don’t doubt that he went into that field because he had an interest in young girls and I feel like I had a very lucky escape, he is such a nasty man and it really makes you think about the culture at the time.

“When my mum was contacted about him by the police it really changed my view of people in authority.

“People used to think doctors were saints, I’ve become more wary and more likely to stand up for myself. It was a life experience, but now I have a defence mechanism.”