A “well-respected” doctor sexually assaulted 19 young patients, including a 14-year-old girl who was raped after being tied to a couch, a court has heard.

Consultant paediatrician Michael Salmon assaulted 18 girls and a boy while working at Stoke Mandeville hospital in Buckinghamshire in the 1970s and 80s, a jury at Reading crown court was told.

Salmon, 81, of Salisbury, denies 25 counts of indecent assault against complainants as young as eight and also pleads not guilty to the rape of the 14-year-old girl.

Miranda Moore QC, prosecuting, told the jury: “The complainants were either screened from their parents or Mr Salmon persuaded their parents to wait outside the room.”

He would touch the children intimately, carry out “inappropriate” examinations without a nurse present, and in one case raped a girl, Moore said.

“Mr Salmon defends his position by saying he always acted correctly towards young patients and was in line with medical procedure. There is a common thread of him using his status as a very well-respected doctor,” she said.

“He would routinely get the child away from the parent, often the child was uncomfortable and sometimes would tell the parent but they would say: ‘Well he’s a doctor’.”

Describing the most serious charge against Salmon, Moore said he tied a 14-year-old girl, who cannot be named, to a couch and raped her. “She did not want to return to see him again but she was made to by her mother,” Moore said. “On the third visit she remembers running from the room.”

Another alleged victim aged 12 said Salmon would “fondle” her behind a screen. A third said she was assaulted after going to see Salmon about a cyst on her ear.

One complainant said he talked to her inappropriately and showed her sexual illustrations in a book. Moore said Salmon accepted he had the book The Joy of Sex in his consulting rooms.

Moore said the alleged victims made their complaints after Salmon was put on trial in 2015 for other offences. The jury was told he was convicted of 11 offences.

She said: “The complainants came forward after having seen, or heard, or been told about the 2015 case. Many of them thought Michael Salmon was long dead.”

The prosecutor said Salmon was struck off the medical register in 1991 after admitting three indecent assaults.

The trial continues.