A former doctor from Tristar Medical Group has been jailed and will never practice medicine again, pleading guilty to multiple sexual assaults while working as a GP in Avoca.

Martin Lee was sentenced at the Ballarat Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday on four counts of sexual assault on four women between 2017 and 2020, according to an Australian Community Media article.

The women were all patients of Dr Lee at one time prior to the offending.

According to the ACM article, the court was told the first incident was in 2017, when one of the women visited the clinic for an appointment.

The court heard Dr Lee forcefully removed the woman’s bra under the guise of a routine check-up and massaged her breasts for an extended period.

The woman did not return to see Dr Lee following the incident and told the court she felt disgusted and violated.

The following year in 2018, Dr Lee wrote a letter to the woman defending his actions and apologised for any distress he may have caused.

The court heard in May 2020, another woman visited Dr Lee about a rash on her back. While inspecting the rash, Dr Lee lifted the sides of her top, exposing her breasts, and pinched her.

The woman said she was in shock and froze during the incident.

Another incident took place in 2020 when Dr Lee sexually assaulted another woman while gold detecting.

According to ACM reporting, Dr Lee began helping the woman secure her gold detecting harness, but then began fondling her breasts and trying to kiss her.

In August 2020, the fourth woman visited Dr Lee at the clinic to discuss a mental health assessment. 

After speaking, Dr Lee convinced the woman to remove her top and bra under the guise of a breast inspection — he performed the routine inspection but then moved on to inappropriately touching her breasts for about one minute.

An expert medical report provided to the court from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, which looked at the accounts of Dr Lee’s victims, found his handling of the women’s breasts was not in accordance with medical practice.

Dr Lee had also violated the appropriate guidelines and training provided by Tristar Medical Group.

According to the ACM report, Magistrate Hugh Radford said Dr Lee would never practice medicine again.

“It is a significant fall from grace, not only personally but within the medical community and within your profession,” Mr Radford said.

“I think there is a significant aggregating factor to be taken into account, the breach of trust a patient has with their doctor.”

Magistrate Radford took into account Dr Lee’s guilty plea and lack of criminal record. He was sentenced to 12 months’ jail and a 24 month community corrections order.