A Pakistani worker sexually assaulted a Chinese woman at a pathology clinic in Perth before telling her “Pakistani men like making love” and “lots of Asian women are prostitutes”, a court has found.
Chaudhry Ali Shahbaz, 29, was unanimously found guilty of three counts of sexual penetration without consent by a District Court of Western Australia jury on Friday after two hours of deliberation.
Shahbaz, a phlebotomist, was granted bail under the condition he report daily to a police station and hand over a $150,000 surety ahead of a sentencing hearing set for November 11, The West Australian reported.
His victim used a Chinese interpreter to give her testimony about the assaults, which took place on August 31, 2023, at a clinic in Willetton where she had been referred for blood tests by her GP as she was planning to get pregnant with her husband.
The woman in her 30s told the court Shahbaz said she needed to do a PCR test “through the vagina” in addition to the blood test, and when she asked if she could do it herself he replied with medical terms she didn’t follow, so she agreed to let him do the swab.
Shahbaz then told her to pull her pants and underwear down and sit on a “filthy, dirty” chair, and inserted the swab three times, causing her to feel pain, she told the court.
Prosecutor Thomas Mooney told the court that the GP referral form did not “specify the bodily site for collection”, and said Shahbaz had deceived the victim by telling her she needed an intimate swab as well as a urine test for chlamydia.
He said Shahbaz appeared to be acting on “sexual urges” as he said “that’s beautiful” when he saw the woman’s genitals and started breathing heavily.
Shahbaz then said “I can make love for a long time”, “Pakistani men like making love but not the women” and “if you’re going to a massage shop you can see a lot of Asian women engaged in sex work”, the woman testified during the trial.
Defence lawyer Tom Percy KC said his client denied the accusations, believed the PCR test was requested by the doctor via punctuation on the referral form, and argued that the woman gave herself the intimate swab.
“His case has always been ‘I just didn’t do that’,” Mr Percy told the court.
“We say, she took the samples, probably somewhat clumsily and reluctantly, in the toilet while she took her urine sample.”
Shahbaz was charged after the woman went home and contacted a blood technician friend, told her husband, and was interviewed by police.
Header image: Chaudhry Ali Shahbaz (supplied).
The post Pakistani healthcare worker guilty of sexually assaulting Chinese patient in Perth first appeared on The Noticer.
The Noticer
