A LOCUM doctor accused of abusing his female patients played with a woman’s nipple ring while he examined her breasts, a tribunal heard.

Dr Yenugula Srinivas is accused of “sexually motivated conduct” towards eleven female patients while he was working in the Oxford area between April 2008 and January 2009.

The suspended family doctor, who is also known as Dr Srinivas Yenugula, is said to have carried out inappropriate examinations. He is also made false records in some of the women’s medical notes to disguise his behaviour, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service has heard.

The medic was cleared of sexually assaulting eight of his patients by a jury at Oxford Crown Court in October 2011 after he denied eleven charges.

But he is now facing a string of allegations at a fitness to practise hearing in Manchester.

Dr Srinivas, who at the time of the trial was living in Church Road, Sandford, denies any wrong-doing, but if the allegations are proved and he is found guilty of misconduct he could face being struck off the medical register.

One of his alleged victims, known only as Patient C, told the hearing he had given her an internal examination followed by a breast check when she went for a consultation at the Islip Medical Practice in Islip, in July 2008.

Giving evidence by video-link she sobbed as she described the “awful” experience when she consulted Dr Srinivas over a urinary infection.

After the ten to fifteen minute procedure Patient C told the doctor she had been experiencing hot and cold sweats and pain in her breasts.

Dr Srinivas asked if he could do a breast examination, the tribunal heard.

Patient C said: “He asked me to go on the bed, strip from the waist upwards and then came over. “He explained he was going to have a feel around if there were any lumps or anything. He started to play with my nipple ring, started to flick it up and down and ask me questions about it, asking if it hurt, how long I had had it done.

“I just felt quite embarrassed to be honest.”

Dr Srinivas does not deny seeing the patient, but claims there was no such examination.

He is accused of failing to offer a chaperone to 11 women when conducting intimate examinations, that his conduct was sexually motivated in each case, and failing to provide adequate care to four of them.

The medic is further accused of providing inadequate care to Patient E’s three-year-old daughter, known as Patient F, who attended an emergency consultation with her mother in November 2008.

The hearing continues.