LIKE most patients, Mary trusted her doctor - she had no reason not to.

The 32-year-old from Darlington (her name has been changed to protect her identity) had been a patient at Orchard Court surgery all her life and had never experienced any problems in that time.

But on July 23 last year, her life was irrevocably changed when she went to visit the surgery with a stomach complaint.

Dr Husain told her she would need an internal examination and, given the nature of her illness, she had no reason to question him and she got undressed, like he requested.

The doctor asked her if she would like a chaperone but she said it would be fine, she had had internal examinations before and nothing had ever given her cause for concern.

As she lay on the couch in his consulting room he reached out and indecently assaulted her while using inappropriate language, too disturbing to print.

"I just froze," she said. "I just wanted to get out of there. I knew it was wrong, I felt ill and couldn't speak. It was like rape victims who can't scream, they say they just freeze. I was the same."

After the doctor carried out his attack, Mary sat up and noticed a tissue box on the end of the bed.

The day before, while visiting Dr Husain with her 12-year-old daughter, the youngster commented that she had seen a camera in a tissue box in the doctor's room but Mary did not realise the significance of it at the time.

When police finally told her that he had been secretly filming her as he carried out the assault, she felt devastated and sick to the core.

"It wasn't until I looked back that things have fallen into place," she said.

"It was just devastating."

After leaving the surgery, Mary made the journey home in shock and despair but felt unable to talk about what happened.

She said: "I could not say anything. It was me against a doctor. I thought I had no chance."

Eventually Mary felt able to confide in her mother, who has since been a tremendous support, and the pair contacted the NHS hotline for advice and an appointment was made for Mary to visit a nurse at the surgery.

"They could not believe it.

"I had seen him a couple of times before and he seemed such a nice man, a good doctor. They felt the same."

The practice nurse reported Mary's allegations which eventually led to his arrest and the discovery of more victims.

Since the attack, Mary has been unable to return to the doctors and is too scared to go for vital smear tests.

She is also unable to receive counselling for what happened because she was referred to a male psychiatrist and she could not bear to be alone in a room with another man. Mary said: "It makes me sick what he has done to me and it was awful to hear he had done it to children. He is sick in the head."