A DOCTOR accused of sexually abusing his patients, told jurors all his examinations were for professional reasons.

Yenugula Srinivas, who was a locum GP in Oxford, denies seven counts of serious sexual assault and four sexual assaults dating from his time working in the city in 2008.

The 42-year-old, from Church Road, Sandford-on-Thames, is accused of carrying out unnecessary intimate examinations for his own sexual gratification.

From the witness stand, yesterday afternoon, he told jurors: “I’m a happily married man. If I did an examination on any patient it’s because it’s clinically indicated or for an educational thing.

“It’s not for any other reason.”

The Indian-born doctor, who qualified in 1991 and came to Britain in 1999, said his mother had died of breast cancer at the age of 59, and he wanted to make more women “breast aware” by telling them about, or physically demonstrating, self-examination.

Talking about his reaction to her death, he said: “(I thought) ‘why wasn’t it picked up before?’ There’s no concept of breast awareness (in India), and nobody (has) raised the topic of self-examination.

“It left it in my mind, so I make the point to raise it with my patients.”

Responding to claims by one woman that he examined her breasts and remarked she had ‘spotty t***’, Srinivas said: “It’s a very unprofessional comment and I wouldn’t have made it.”

In reference to an appraisal he had at one Oxford surgery, where he spoke of his weaknesses, he told jurors: “I was out of my depth with something like gynaecology and sometimes paediatrics.

“It’s a learning process and I thought I should get used to that.”

Addressing Srinivas, defence barrister Alan Jenkins said: “The prosecution say you were very experienced in gynaecology, what do you say?”

“That’s not true,” replied the defendant.

Srinivas, who told the court he could not specifically remember each of the appointments complained about, admitted his note-taking was “poor”.

“Some of my notes, looking back, were extremely brief,” he said.

When asked about giving a female patient an internal examination, which had not been recorded in her notes, and believing she may have a cyst, Srinivas said: “It’s a huge mistake not recording it.

“I was afraid of putting in something that would be ridiculed by my colleagues. I thought I would look quite incompetent putting something in I didn’t know.

“I didn’t know what I had found.”

The trial continues.