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A decade ago, former Sydney psychiatrist Ong Ming Tan walked out of prison after serving time for sexually assaulting four of his patients.
It has now come to light that the scale of his abuse reached wider than the justice he then served, as he avoided jail for similar crimes on Monday.
The crippling and lifelong impact of Tan’s abuse was shared by one of his survivors to the Downing Centre District Court before the 52-year-old was sentenced to a two-year intensive correction order for two counts of indecent assault against her.
“No words will ever truly be able to convey the depth of the influences this offence has had on me,” the woman said through tears as she delivered the statement via audiovisual link.
“It has affected every part of my life – emotionally, physically, socially and financially.”
The woman was attacked by Tan in 2009 and 2010 by having her inner thighs stroked while she was being treated for eating and mood disorders at the Northside Clinic in Greenwich.
The doctor also told her not to wear underwear, that he was the only person who loved her enough to “fix her” and that she should describe feeling sexually aroused by him.
“Engaging in treatment remains a challenge due to the loss of my trust in healthcare settings.”
Ong Ming Tan’s victim
The Herald can reveal Tan’s identity after his lawyers dropped a foreshadowed application to prevent publication of his name for 12 months. It was abandoned shortly after the Herald’s lawyers flagged their intention to oppose it.
The first complaints from other young eating disorder patients were made against Tan in November 2011. He pleaded guilty to four indecent assaults and was sentenced in March 2014 to three years’ prison with a two-year non-parole period. His medical registration was suspended and later cancelled.
In 2021, more than a decade after suffering the abuse and five years after Tan was released, the survivor in Monday’s case disclosed the crimes to a psychiatrist who was treating her for post-natal anxiety.
After also confiding in her sister, her mother and a friend, she made a report to police. Tan was charged in 2023 and pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated indecent assault against a victim under his authority.
A disturbing picture of manipulation, control and abuse of trust was painted in the agreed facts released ahead of his sentence on Monday.
Tan saw the woman up to three times a week between 2007 and 2011. He was aged between 35 and 37. She was 10 years younger.
As the pair started texting outside session hours, the woman began to see Tan as her “saviour” and herself as a “special patient”.
Therapy would work, he said, only if she followed his rules of “honesty, confidentiality” and to tell him when she was “pissed off”. She also had to keep the contents of their sessions secret.
They used the code word “boo” to show he knew “everything about her and was the only person who loved her enough to fix her”. She felt the word meant he could “really see” and “love” all of her, “even damaged parts”.
He urged her to wear “hippie flowing skirts or dresses” without underwear and would sit with their knees touching as he held her inner thighs. Being “sexually vulnerable” with him was her only way to find a partner, he advised.
On one occasion, Tan knelt beside her as she sat on a chair, speechless in shock. He spread her legs and stroked high up her thighs, while telling her she was “asking for this” and that her body wanted him. Then he said, “boo”.
Tan would habitually give her a “gift” that she would return at their next session. In late 2011, shortly after he’d handed her an engraved pen his parents gave him after his university graduation, he never returned to the clinic. Tan had been fired amid the other investigations.
The woman told the court that she had been repeatedly hospitalised with post-traumatic stress disorder sparked from the assaults, which caused lasting anxiety, intrusive thoughts and sleep problems.
“I often feel unsafe and remain in a constant state of hypervigilance,” she said, adding she struggled to care for herself and others.
“I continue to require treatment and support, but engaging in treatment remains a challenge due to the loss of my trust in healthcare settings … I am working towards recovery, but it is slow and an ongoing process.”
Judge Anthony Blackmore said Tan had “severely breached” the trust of a vulnerable patient.
However, he said evidence suggested he had been largely rehabilitated in the years since the offending and that a community-based sentence was more appropriate than full-time prison.
The court heard Tan suffered from bipolar disorder and had been receiving mental health treatment. Many family members were there to support him.
Under his intensive correction order, he must participate in any program or treatment specified by community corrections and abstain from alcohol.
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