Sex assault trial begins in Surrey for Nigerian doctor acquitted in separate case
A sexual assault trial is underway in B.C. Supreme Court for a Surrey physician who was acquitted less than two weeks ago in a separate sexual assault case.
A sexual assault trial is underway in B.C. Supreme Court for a Surrey physician who was acquitted less than two weeks ago in a separate sexual assault case.
Dr. Olumuyiwa Bamgbade, 56, an anesthesiologist and pain physician, faces one count of sexual assault and another of administering a drug to commit an indictable offence.
The new trial comes less than two weeks removed from Dr. Bamgbade being acquitted in a separate judge-only trial on a different sexual assault charge.
His defence counsel, meanwhile, said the doctor is allegedly being extorted by drug addicts.
In addition to working as an anaesthesiologist and interventional pain physician, the doctor also runs a pain clinic in Surrey and is listed as a clinical associate professor at the University of British Columbia.
In spring 2023, police confirmed they had received at least four complaints from former patients accusing Bamgbade of sexually assaulting them while they received treatment at his clinic. Two of those resulted in charges.
The first of those charges made its way through a months-long judge-only trial at Surrey Provincial Court earlier this year, which resulted in a not guilty verdict last Friday.
In provincial court, the doctor’s defence counsel argued the alleged victim “had a motive to lie” due to “drug-seeking behaviour.”
Although Judge Mark Jetté found the defence’s “drug-seeking” argument unconvincing, he acquitted the doctor, not being convinced beyond a reasonable doubt of Bamgbade’s guilt.
The judge concluded the assault could not have happened as alleged because the touching and kissing were “incompatible with the layout in the room where she spent time alone with Dr. Bamgbade.”
Dr. Bamgbade has authored academic papers, some while undergoing discovery and criminal pre-trial, on what he terms “pain management doctor harassment.”
The academic literature sometimes reads more like a courtroom defence than medical literature.
“Patients with chronic pain often experience psychological issues,” he writes in a May 2024 study titled “Pain Management and Sociology Implications: The Sociomedical Problem of Pain Clinic Staff Harassment Caused by Chronic Pain Patients.”
“Incidents of clinic staff harassment by patients were categorized into insults, threats, retaliation complaints and sexual harassment,” the doctor insists in his writing.
“Threats from patients,” he continues, include “complaints to authorities, negative customer reviews, vengeance, vandalism and physical violence” along with “making spurious complaints to authorities and lodging unfair medicolegal complaints.”
“They may also exhibit harassing behaviours toward health care staff. This complex sociomedical issue necessitates increased attention,” the doctor continues.
In addition to lamenting harassment of doctors specializing in pain management, Dr. Bamgbade has also written about Canadian medical patients being “racist”—contributing to the country’s current doctor shortage.
“An official report by Statistics Canada in 2024 confirmed that more than 15 per cent of immigrants leave Canada within 20 years of landing, and more than 5 per cent leave within five years of landing,” the doctor writes in another paper titled “Immigrant Doctors Provide Vital Healthcare But Mistreating Them Damages Society And Health Outcomes”—linking the temporary tenure of immigrant doctors in Canada to “racist, xenophobic, prejudicial, and accent-mocking insults.”
Dr. Bamgbade warns in the paper: “Do not mock other people’s accents because they probably have more cognitive, problem-solving, critical thinking, and language skills than you.”
A key witness in the B.C. Supreme Court trial stepped off the stand while under cross-examination Monday, owing to her concerns over family privacy.
Despite the witness not continuing cross-examination, the ongoing sexual assault trial continues in New Westminster and is expected to continue for at least several weeks.
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