South African-born GP Barend Delport has been jailed in the UK for six years after he took more than 800 indecent photographs of women and child patients he molested at his surgery.
,Delport, who according to a report in the Metro newspaper had 500,000 pornographic and voyeuristic images on his home PC, was locked up for longer than he should have been under sentencing guidelines. The 55-year-old, whose youngest victim in a decade of abuse was just 18 months old, was told by Judge Philip Statman it was ‘difficult to imagine a greater breach of trust’.
Metro quoted the judge as saying: ‘We trust our GPs with our health and, even more significantly, we trust them with the health of our children. What you did for utterly spurious reasons was to use your position as a trusted GP to touch and photograph your victims.’
Deport tricked his victims into inappropriate and unnecessary examinations at his surgery in Swanley, Kent. He told women he was taking pictures so hecould build a case against hospital midwives he said had failed to look after them properly. Churchgoer Delport called one of his young victims his ‘little girlfriend’ and gave her money and sweets.
His ten years of abuse came to an end when a mother questioned why her daughter was intimately examined when she complained of a stomach ache.
Delport led services at the Baptist church near his home in the village of Eynsford. He admitted to 26 charges at Maidstone crown court. The next service he leads should be in the slammer.
The Mail online reported that members of Eynsford Baptist Church said they felt betrayed by the doctor who they considered to be their spiritual leader. He presided over every Sunday service. He would hold so-called ‘soaking sessions’ in the waiting room of the surgery, when members of the community were invited to ‘immerse’ themselves in Christianity by listening to religious music and meditating. Delport attended religious conferences in Canada and even wrote a book published in 2008, called Interpreting Visions, Dreams And Symbols From A Biblical Perspective.
Friends said Delport enjoyed spending his money on golfing holidays, clothes and technology.