LONDON (AP) - A former British doctor has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for groping female patients including a 12-year-old child.

Alan Tutin assaulted victims at the Merrow Park Practice in Guildford, 35 miles (55 kilometers) southwest of London, between 1980 and 2004.

Judge Nigel Peters said Friday that “there cannot be a more serious abuse of trust that these courts have to deal with than that of a doctor and a patient.”

He told the 71-year-old former physician in the Old Bailey courthouse that Tutin had carried out unneeded examinations “no doubt to fuel your own sexual gratification.”

The judge said many of his victims suffered for years and remain suspicious of doctors.

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