Manesh Gill: Appeal for longer sentence for GP who raped student nurse
Dr Manesh Gill, 39, preyed on the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, after contacting her on dating app Tinder.Gill, of Edinburgh’s Corstorphine area, was given a four year stretch after being convicted following a trial at the city’s high court.But now Crown lawyers are set to go to the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, in a bid to argue that the jail term imposed on Gill was unduly lenient.An official at the court confirmed on Monday that the appeal was set to take place later this year.During the trial a jury heard how Gill carried out the sex attack on the victim after luring her to a hotel bedroom in Stirling on December 8 in 2018.Gill went onto the Tinder site calling himself 'Mike' before saying he "superliked" the young woman's profile on the dating app prior to their meeting.The woman said that he got her to go to his room in order to use a toilet and poured her a "really strong" pink gin and lemonade before she was attacked.During evidence at Gill's earlier trial she fought back tears as she described how she was sexually assaulted as her body "shut down".She told prosecutor Stephanie Ross: "He was on top of me. I was trying to push him off. I couldn't.""I just felt like my whole body was stuck to the bed. He was having sex with me. I wanted to go home. I felt as if I couldn't move. I couldn't do anything," she said.The father of three, who worked as a doctor in the Scottish capital, admitted that he brought a condom, Viagra and a bottle of the woman's favourite drink - pink gin - to the hotel.The GP had denied raping the woman but he was earlier unanimously convicted of the sex crime committed when the victim was incapable of giving or withholding consent.Jurors deleted an allegation that Gill administered an intoxicating substance to the victim, who said she was unable to control her movements.The court heard that following his arrest he told a colleague that he was worried that police would potentially find morphine in the woman's system.In passing sentence last month, judge Lord Tyre told Gill that the woman had described "a distressing and frightening encounter" which lasted for a couple of hours.Lord Tyre told the disgraced GP: "You have no criminal record and you have clearly been a valued member of the medical profession."But the judge said that he was in "no doubt" that the gravity of the GP’s offence could only be marked by the imposition of a custodial sentence.He told Gill that he would be placed on the sex offenders' register indefinitely following his sentencing.The appeal court hearing is scheduled to take place on August 25 2022.