WTF! - Not Again? - Psychiatrist "pressurised" another women to have sex

A London psychiatrist had sex with a female patient and then told her it had to happen to "defuse" the tension between them, the General Medical Council has heard.

The woman said her mental health deteriorated after the alleged encounter with Dr Theodore Soutzos while a hospital in-patient. She attempted suicide a number of times and felt stressed by his warnings that she must not tell anyone, a fitness to practise panel was told.

Harley Street psychiatrist Dr Soutzos "pressurised" the woman - who was 37 at the time - into a relationship, showering her with compliments, taking her to art galleries and swimming, the hearing was told.

The psychiatrist is accused of having conducted "improper" relationships with three women he was treating between 1999 and 2006 at NHS and private clinics. He treated Patient A while a specialist registrar at Guy's Hospital in London from January to December 1999 after she was admitted to the Maurice Craig ward.

The woman told the hearing she went to Dr Soutzos's north London flat at his invitation on the evening of March 26. With candles burning, he started kissing her before taking off her clothes and having sex with her for such a long time she wondered if he had taken Viagra, she told the panel.

When the psychiatrist dropped the woman back at the hospital in the early hours of the morning, they discussed what had happened, the GMC heard. Patient A said: "We were sitting in the car. I said 'are we in a relationship?'... we had been swimming, we had been to art galleries and we had just had sex.

"He said 'how can we be because I'm your doctor and you're my patient?' I said 'what have we been doing for the last two and a half hours?"

His reply, she alleged, was: "We had to defuse the sexual tension that had been building up between us in order to enable us to work together."

The GMC alleges Dr Soutzos's conduct towards Patient A was "inappropriate" and that he abused his position of trust. He is also accused of "improper emotional and sexual" relationships with a female patient he met while working at Bowden House Clinic in Harrow between 2003 and 2006 and a third woman he treated at the Priory Hospital in Roehampton in 2006.

Dr Soutzos denies misconduct. The hearing, which is scheduled to last until next month, was adjourned to Wednesday.

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