Toronto doctor convicted of 21 counts of drugging and sexually assaulting patients to serve rest of sentence 'in community'

A Toronto doctor who sexually assaulted at least 21 women while they were sedated was freed from prison on statutory release today and will remain in his community for the rest of his sentence, Global News reports.

George Doodnaught, 71, was handed a 10-year sentence in 2013 for sexually assaulting the women over a four-year period at North York General Hospital in Toronto. A father of five, his victims range between the ages of 25 and 75.

Doodnaught "fondled and kissed some of [his victims] while forcing others to perform fellatio or manually masturbate him," the Toronto Sun reported.

The Parole Board is requiring the former doctor to report any relationships he engages in with women and to follow a plan to treat his sexual deviancy. He must also get permission from his parole officer before he can begin working, as he engaged in the sexual misconduct at his workplace. Doodnaught is also prohibited from entering Durham region, going to parts of Toronto, and from contacting any of the women he sexually assaulted.

The terms of statutory release are different from parole in that the conditions of his release are laid out under the law rather than by a parole board. Statutory release is allowed for prisoners who have served at least 2/3rds of their sentence.

While Doodnaught sought a parole agreement in 2019, he was denied the request as the parole board determined that "he showed little insight into the trauma he inflicted on his victims." He continues to deny that he sexually assaulted the women, claiming that all 21 of his victims only believe themselves to have been sexually assaulted due to the anesthetics they received.

The court found that Doodnaught was able to sexually abuse his victims behind drapes, which allowed him to commit the acts without other doctors present seeing what he was doing.

In some cases, Doodnaught even attempted to gaslight his victims into believing that they initiated the sexual encounters. “In some cases, you manipulated the victims into believing that they had initiated the sexual contact or that they had engaged you in explicit sexual conversation,” the court stated in 2019. The court rejected Doodnaught's claim that he was simply pinching the victim's breasts and abdomen to determine whether they were definitively sedated.