A gynaecologist who secretly took intimate photos of more than 1,000 patients in Germany was sentenced to three and a half years in prison today.
A judge in the district court of Frankenthal, Rhineland-Palatinate state in western Germany, also prohibited the man from practising medicine for four years after prison.
The judge said the gynaecologist violated the "most personal part of life" of women in 1,467 cases, and also found the doctor guilty of sexual abuse in three cases, reported national news agency DPA.
The doctor lost his medical license and will likely never get it back, DPA reported the judge saying.
The doctor recorded the images from 2008 to 2011.
After being tipped off by two long-time medical assistants, investigators found tens of thousands of photos of well over a thousand patients in the man's possession, DPA reported.
Women were photographed in the changing room and while on the treatment table, according to the agency, and dozens of video sequences were also discovered.
The verdict was "outside of our expectations", Goetz Stuckensen, the doctor's lawyer, told DPA, and indicated he would seek an appeal.
In court proceedings, the doctor, named only as 'Joachim K' in local media accounts, admitted to making the recordings and apologised to his patients but rejected the sexual abuse allegations.
