UCL scientist accused of sexually assaulting women while offering insemination service
Court told the professor took advantage of women desperate to become mothers
The TabA UCL professor who claims to have fathered 58 children through his private fertility service has been accused of sexually assaulting three of them as part of the insemination process.
Neuroscientist Gennadij Raivich allegedly told one woman that she would need to perform oral sex on him in order to obtain a sample of his sperm, and another victim was told her chances of getting pregnant would increase if she orgasmed while being inseminated, a court heard.
The UCL professor is accused of sexually assaulting three ‘patients’
Unsurprisingly, this advice would not conform to the guidelines of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.
The prosecution told the court that Raivich has never practiced medicine in the UK and is not registered with the General Medical Council, though he is a qualified doctor in Germany.
Jurors were told that Raivich, occasionally using the alias Frank Qualman, would take a “donation kit” to each victim’s house that contained a DVD player for watching pornography, rubber gloves, a speculum, and a pipette.
Prosecutor Tom Wilkins said Raivich used websites to advertise his service, adding: “He represents himself as a ‘Medical Doctor based in central London’, providing a service called Intra-Cervical Insemination or ICI”.
The prosecution went on to tell the court that the first victim saw Raivich on February 27, 2012 when he assaulted her “wholly gratuitously and without warning”. However, “due to her desperation to have a baby, she returned ten times”.
His second victim was allegedly persuaded to engage in oral sex as part of a service called “Artificial Insemination Plus”. The prosecution said: “Unless she performed oral sex on him she would not get a donation. She was desperate for a baby and agreed”.
Professor Raivich’s online staff profile
According to the prosecution, Raivich also groped the victim between the legs, despite being told “three or four times not to touch her there”.
The third victim was visited at her home in Great Yarmouth. Jurors heard that Raivich “lifted up her t-shirt and groped her breasts […] to test her fertility”.
In all three instances, the prosecution said that the professor “took advantage of [his victims’] desperation, his anonymity and informality by committing various types of sexual assault against them”.
Raivich has pleaded not guilty to assault by digital penetration in relation to the first victim, one count of assault by penetration and sexual assault against another, and two counts of assault by penetration and two counts of sexual assault on a third. He also denies two counts of sexual assault against the third woman on January 31 last year and assault by penetration on the same date.
The trial continues.