Former doctor faces assault allegations.

A  Wiltshire doctor raped and indecently assaulted young girls thinking he was “bomb-proof” because no one would accept a child’s word against his, Reading Crown Court has been told.

Michael Salmon, 79, was employed at hospitals in Buckinghamshire, including Stoke Mandeville, Aylesbury, where disgraced DJ Jimmy Savile also worked.

Salmon, of Park Lane, Salisbury, faces three counts of rape, 11 of indecent assault, and two of using an instrument with intent to procure a miscarriage. The charges relate to eight girls aged from 11 to 18, between 1973 and 1988.

Ms Miranda Moore QC prosecuting said most of the 16 counts were very similar alleging sexual assault on young girls. She said: “Each count relates to a young girl which he met while working as a consultant paediatrician in Buckinghamshire.

She said: “The witnesses will probably refer to him as Dr Salmon. He’s no longer a doctor, not because he’s retired, but because he was struck off the medical register in 1991 after being convicted in 1990 of three counts of indecent assault against young female patients.”

Ms Moore said the defendant would examine young girls in a consulting room, where either they were screened from their parent or parents, or the parents were outside the room.

She added: “Sometimes he handled the breasts of some of the young girls, with the pretence of listening to their heart, and he also carried out internal vaginal examinations, when there was no medical need whatsoever, without a nurse present and without wearing surgical gloves.”

She added: “In one case he used a girl’s distress to offer to undertake an illegal abortion, and raped her in the aftermath, at the same time.”

The cases of using an instrument with intent to procure a miscarriage related to a young lady aged 16 who believed she was pregnant and sought help from Salmon.

He told her she was pregnant and took her to the bedroom at his home, where he produced an instrument like a tube which he said would suck out the foetus, the court was told.

The procedure made her bleed, and she went into the bathroom and cleaned herself up. He then told her to lie on the bed, said “one favour deserves another” and raped her, Ms Moore said.

A couple of weeks later he rang and said she may have been going to have twins, and persuaded her to come to his house.

He performed the same procedure again and tried to rape her again, but this time she managed to fight him off.

Another rape charge related to a child patient at Stoke Mandeville, who encountered abuse at the hands of others before she was introduced to Salmon, who told her to call him “Uncle Mike”.

On one occasion Salmon, another abuser and a third man she did not know all had sex with her, jurors were told. A this time she was aged 12, 13 or 14.

Ms Moore added: “She remembers after being raped by three men, that she was taken back to her bed by a hospital porter.”

The defendant was arrested in November 2013 and described allegations against him as “rubbish” and “absolute nonsense”. Salmon described his accusers as “gold diggers” and said: “I’m speechless. I’ve never in my life raped anyone.”

He denies all the counts. The trial is expected to last four weeks.