A Malaysian immigrant doctor has been granted parole immediately after being sentenced for taking photos of a minor’s genitalia during a medical procedure in country New South Wales.
Nicholas Chia Wei Chu, 28, moved to Australia in 2016 to study medicine but was on Thursday sentenced in the NSW District Court to one year in jail with a six-month non-parole period for producing child abuse material.
Chu, who admitted taking 21 intimate images of a 14-year-old patient while working at Orange Health Service, was released shortly afterwards due to time served, having been in jail since August last year, Australia Associated Press reported.
Judge Penny Musgrave also sentenced Chu to a two-year Intensive Correction Order with 480 hours of community service for separate charges relating to adult victims who the perverted doctor also secretly photographed.
Chu took covert photos and videos of 11 patients, as well as friends naked in their bathrooms and bedrooms at homes in Sydney and Orange, and colleagues in the hospital changing room between January 2022 and February 2023.
He has been banned from working as a doctor, may not work unsupervised, must stay away from the Orange region, and must allow police access to his electronic devices.
In a hand-written apology letter Chu described himself as “selfish”, “wicked” and “perverse”, but claimed that 28 sessions with a psychologist made him realise that his mother abandoning him as a child had given him an “anxious-insecure attachment style”.
He claimed to have been diagnosed as a “voyeur” and said his brain misread lewd images as emotional intimacy.
Chu apologised to his victims, saying “I harmed them when I was supposed to help them”.
“I abused my responsibilities as a doctor and I did so serially,” he said.
“I’ve caused my patients to suffer by my selfish and wicked actions.”
He also said that he recognised that he had let down his father and aunt, who spent their life-savings on his education.
Header image credit: Orange Health Service.
