GP Roy Murray sexually abused patients for 20 years, but health officials failed to act. Liza Williams reports
GP Roy Murray sexually abused patients for 20 years, but health officials failed to act. Liza Williams reports
A REPORT into a Merseyside GP who sexually attacked 23 of his young women patients over a 20- year period has revealed a catalogue of errors by local health officials.
Despite complaints from victims and evidence of a declining patient list, Roy Murray, 68, from Bromborough, was able to continue molesting young women at his practice in Liverpool Road, St Helens, from 1980 to 2002.
He was sent to prison for six years in 2004, but a report released yesterday reveals a string of mistakes by local health officials over a 20-year period, which meant he was able to carry on assaulting patients.
The report concluded staff at St Helens Primary Care Trust could have acted as early as the late 1980s, and that, by the mid- 1990s, there was “sufficient evidence that all was not well”.
It also criticises the complaints system, which was “too complicated and adversarial”, and made it difficult for patients to question a doctor.
Murray could have also been reported to the General Medical Council, but no action was taken, and the report highlights a series of failures within the PCT’s systems.
Specified issues include:
individuals and organisations failing to see the whole picture;
staff believing that they required knowledge of more than one incident before they could take action;
NHS officers thinking certain issues were outside their responsibility.
Local bodies – including Halton and St Helens PCT, which took over from the former PCT in 2006 – say procedures have now been tightened up.
At the time of changeover, a review team said it was “not in a position to give assurance that the systems were sufficiently robust to minimise a “Murray” scenario occurring again.”
Several of Murray’s victims are now considering whether to bring claims for negligence against the Strategic Health Authority.
Ally Taft, a solicitor at Irwin Mitchell, in Manchester, who represents eight victims, said: “It is deeply disappointing for the victims that nobody acted sooner.
“They have paid a heavy price.
“If one of our neighbours knocked on the door in distress and said she'd been sexually assaulted, we'd all know what to do – we'd call the police.
“But, for years, healthcare professionals in St Helens and the wider area were aware of complaints and concerns, but were apparently in doubt about what they were empowered to do.
“Their failures flew in the face of common sense and their inaction over two decades falls far below mere incompetence.
“Murray’s victims have waited for five long years for answers, and it seems the issues have still not yet been tackled properly.
“They have the right to demand full and immediate implementation of all the review recommendations and full assurances that patient protection is being taken seriously in this region and that lessons have truly been learnt.”
Many of Murray’s victims were young women seeking contraceptive advice for the first time, or consulting him with regards to their first pregnancy.
