A year after a Perth doctor was given a suspended prison sentence over the prolonged and repeated sexual assault and harassment of a married employee, he has lost his license to practice medicine and is ineligible to reapply for five years.
Akinyemi Freeman, 74, met his victim through church when she moved to Perth with her husband and four children from Nigeria in 2013.
The State Administrative Tribunal in Perth.Credit: Heather McNeill
State Administrative Tribunal records released this week show that Freeman, also originally from Nigeria, offered the woman a job at his medical practice where she was employed originally as a receptionist and then as the practice manager.
Freeman then offered to sponsor her for permanent residency.
In 2016 the woman’s husband had to return to Nigeria to work, which sparked the doctor’s campaign of harassment and assault.
Over a period of almost two years, Freeman engaged in sexual misconduct towards her, both while they worked together at the clinic and outside of work hours, by repeatedly making unwelcome comments about her physical appearance, his desire to kiss and touch her, leading to him groping her and even spending the night at her house uninvited.
That incident led to the woman spending the night locked in her car in the garage while Freeman slept in her bed.
“They say you only fall in love once, but that cannot be true,” one of the handwritten notes Freeman left the woman said.
“Every time I look at you I fall in love all over again.”
Another said: “You make me happy in a way no one else can.”
In May 2017 the doctor booked a hotel room for the pair with the doctor telling the woman it was “for us to relax together so you can know me better”. He drove the woman to the hotel’s car park and spent 15 to 20 minutes trying to convince her to go inside with him, but she refused.
On a later occasion, the doctor groped the woman’s breasts in the clinic’s staff kitchen and on another tried to persistently put his hands up her dress. On that occasion, she pushed him off so hard that he fell to the floor, allowing her to escape.
A year later, the doctor grabbed the woman’s breasts and buttocks while she was making a cup of tea in the kitchen, telling her: “I don’t give up easily, you should know that by now. I will continue to try but when it gets to a point I will make up my mind and once I make up my mind, I won’t press further, but you won’t like what I will do after that.”
In November 2023, a Perth magistrate found Freeman guilty of seven charges of unlawful and indecent assault after the woman complained to authorities.
He was given a 15-month sentence that was suspended for 12 months but this week the Medical Board of Australia disqualified him from practising for five years and ordered him to pay the applicant’s costs.
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