A former nurse will spend at least three and a half years in prison after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a student and patients under her care at two private hospitals.
Ali Khamis Moh sexually abused three different women at Sydney’s Norwest and Nepean private hospitals between December 2018 and March 2022.
At the time he was working as a clinical nurse specialist, caring for patients scheduled for surgeries in intensive care and coronary care units.
The 44-year-old was sentenced on Friday to five years and two months in prison, with a non-parole period of three and a half years.
Judge Ian Bourke said Moh had “manipulated and abused his position of authority for his own sexual gratifications”.
“The (victims) speak in clear terms of the fear, confusion, shock and sense of violation they experienced at the time of the incident,” he told Parramatta District Court.
After 14 hours of deliberations in August, a jury found Moh’d guilty of one count of rape and three counts of aggravated sexual touching.
He was found to have grabbed a 21-year-old nursing student’s underwear and pulled it away from her skin to view her genitals while teaching her to listen to bowel sounds using a stethoscope.
Ali Khamis Moh had abused his power as a nurse for “his own sexual gratification”, a judge concluded
The jury accepted further complaints from a 25-year-old patient that Moh had asked to inspect a surgical wound in the groin area just after her heart operation.
He massaged her groin before touching her vagina with his fingers.
During the trial, Crown prosecutor Sarah Beaumont told jurors that the patient began crying after Moh left the room.
The 25-year-old subsequently filed a complaint at the hospital and went to the police.
Moh’d was also found to have touched a 67-year-old woman’s breasts while placing cardiac monitoring stickers on her body after she took a pre-operative shower.
At trial, the prosecution alleged that Moh had told her: “you have nice breasts for someone your age.”
During the trial, Moh’d’s lawyer, Linda Barnes, said her client denied sexually touching or having sexual relations with any of the complainants.
“In summary, Mr Moh’d’s argument is that any contact he had with the complainants was for medical purposes, that is, for health or hygiene purposes or for educational purposes,” he told the jury.
Moh had taken in abused patients and a nursing student while working at two private hospitals, including Nepean Private Hospital (pictured).
On Friday, Barnes argued that he should receive a lesser sentence since he did not appear to derive obvious sexual gratification from his crime.
“We often see in court evidence from complainants indicating that a person was visibly aroused, had erections and ejaculated,” he said.
“None of the complainants presented evidence that Moh had demonstrated anything that reflected sexual gratification.”
But Judge Bourke said the offense was serious and he was not satisfied with that argument.
“The absence of such elements does not reduce the severity,” he said.
Moh’d’s wife sat in the back of the courtroom silently during the sentencing.
He will be eligible for release in 2028.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Support Service for Reparation and Sexual Abuse 1800 211 028
