A Perth pathology clinic worker has been jailed for sexually assaulting a female Chinese patient and telling her “Pakistani men like making love but Pakistani women do not”.
Chaudhry Ali Shahbaz, 29, was found guilty of three counts of sexual penetration without consent by a District Court of Western Australia jury in September, and on Tuesday was sentenced to four years’ jail with a two-year non-parole period, The West Australian reported.
Judge Mara Barone said Shahbaz, a phlebotomist, had grossly breached the woman’s trust and humiliated her during the August 2023 assault 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 via a Chinese interpreter during the trial that Shahbaz said she needed to do a PCR test “through the vagina” in addition to the blood test.
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, saying “that’s beautiful” and breathing heavily when he saw the woman’s genitals. He then inserted the swab three times, causing her to feel pain.
The trial heard Shahbaz also told the woman “I can make love for a long time”, and “if you’re going to a massage shop you can see a lot of Asian women engaged in sex work”.
Judge Barone found the woman was particularly vulnerable due to her very limited English, and said Shahbaz had abused his position as a healthcare worker.
“When a woman who seeks medical tests and is required to put herself in a vulnerable position, exposing the most vulnerable parts of her body to a stranger, she does so in the hope that the person in good faith will engage themselves as a professional,” she said.
“You failed against that measure in a remarkable way in that for your own sexual gratification, you caused pain and humiliation to a woman who was simply coming for medical tests to be conducted upon her.”
Header image: Chaudhry Ali Shahbaz (supplied).
