Cancer Doctor May Have Abused 800 Children

Dr Myles Bradbury abused patients in his care aged as young as eight and hundreds of other families have been warned that their children could be victims

Paediatric haematologist Dr Myles Bradbury, 41, of Herringswell, Suffolk, arrives at Cambridge Crown Court Photo: PA

Up to 800 children could have been abused by a paediatrician who is facing jail after admitting a string of sexual offences, it emerged.


Dr Myles Bradbury abused patients in his care aged as young as eight and hundreds of other families have been warned that their children could be victims, it was reported.


Bradbury, 41, a paediatric haematologist who worked at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, pleaded guilty to 25 counts including seven of sexual assault and 12 of engaging in sexual activity with a child.


Police said the doctor carried out unjustified medical examinations on young boys “purely for his own sexual gratification”.


Some of Bradbury’s victims were suffering from grave illnesses, including cancer.

He also admitted three counts of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, one count of voyeurism and two counts of making indecent images of a child.

John Farmer, prosecuting, told Cambridge Crown Court that the offences involved 18 complainants aged eight to 17 over a four-year period from 2009.

A spokesman for Cambridgeshire Police confirmed there were likely to be more victims of Bradbury who have yet to come forward.

The total of 800 possible victims include those he treated during his five years at Addenbrooke’s and at two other hospitals in Colchester and Ipswich, where he held outpatients clinics between 2008 and 2013, the Daily Mail reported.

One parent whose son was treated for leukaemia by Bradbury for 14 months before his death at the age of three said she feared she would never know if he was molested.

Claire Yeoman’s son Declan was not among the victims named in court but she told BBC Look East: “It made me feel physically ill. Obviously you think ‘was your child involved?’

“You go through every single day of his treatment and basically relive the whole memory of 18 months.” Addenbrooke’s has opened a helpline for families who fear that they might have been affected.

It also emerged that more than 16,000 indecent images of children were found on a computer disk in Bradbury’s home in Herringswell, near Bury St Edmund’s, Suffolk.

Bradbury pleaded not guilty to a count of sexual activity with a child and a count of sexual assault.

Judge Gareth Hawkesworth said those two offences will lie on file and told Bradbury that he could expect a “substantial” custodial sentence.

He was ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register immediately.

Bradbury was bailed to a later date for sentencing and said “I’m so sorry” to reporters as he left court.

Dr Keith McNeil, the chief executive of the NHS trust which runs Addenbrooke’s, said: “As chief executive of the trust, I am so deeply sorry these incidents have happened and I am also deeply saddened, as a doctor, that one of my own profession has placed himself and his patients in this position.

“There is a very ancient and sacred trust that exists between a doctor and his patients and, quite frankly, it sickens me to think that trust has been breached.”

Ann-Marie Ingle, the trust’s chief nurse, described the defendant’s crimes as a “cold and calculating abuse of trust” which had left staff “deeply shocked”. 

 

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