Pervert struck off medical roll

4:09pm Monday 19th February 2001

A RETIRED psychiatrist, who once worked at a Woolwich Hospital, has been struck off by the General Medical Council for abusing two male teenagers after becoming involved in a paedophile ring.

Paul Kenneth Bridges, aged 70, preyed on a 15-year-old runaway in 1996 after offering him money. The youngster eventually complained to police who discovered pornographic photographs had been shot at Bridges' flat in Clapham.

A second victim, aged 16, came into contact with him after he answered an advert in the Gay Times looking for male models.

The GMC decided Bridges, who worked at the Brook General Hospital, in Woolwich, should be struck off.

Its chairman, Professor Denis McDevitt, said Bridges had brought the profession into disrepute and undermined public trust.

Bridges also worked at King's College Hospital and St Thomas', in south London, and the Bethlehem Royal, in Beckenham.

Anne McArthur, for the GMC, said his first victim was a runaway boy who fell into the clutches of paedophile photographers in Aldershot, Hampshire.

She said the gang gave him lodgings in return for sexual favours and taking photographs of him. The boy told police his first shoot had taken place at Bridges' flat.

Miss McArthur said the teenager recalled that Bridges asked to go to bed with him, and he agreed because he was short of money.

“He was then indecently assaulted,” she said.

The GMC heard another teenager went to the doctor's flat in 1999, after answering an advert, and was indecently assaulted after a photographic session.

Bridges, whose address is now c/o Lloyds Bank Ltd, in Stroud, Gloucester, pleaded guilty at Guildford Crown Court last August to two counts of indecent assault on a male, and taking an indecent photograph of a child.

He was given sentences of 15 months for each assault and six months for the indecent photograph, to run concurrently and suspended for two years.