A PERVERTED osteopath was jailed today for seven and a half years for a string of sex attacks against four female patients over a three year period.Owen Bull, 49, of Woodbridge Road East, Ipswich, was found guilty of attempted rape, two indecent assaults and a sexual assault at Norwich Crown Court last month.

A PERVERTED osteopath was jailed today for seven and a half years for a string of sex attacks against four female patients over a three year period.

Owen Bull, 49, of Woodbridge Road East, Ipswich, was found guilty of attempted rape, two indecent assaults and a sexual assault at Norwich Crown Court last month.

He had pleaded not guilty to all the charges including three more sex offences which he was cleared of.

Sentencing Bull for six years imprisonment for the attempted rape and 18 months in total to be served consecutively for the other offences Judge Paul Downes said: “I bear in mind that you are a man of previous good character and a skilled and efficient practitioner who has no doubt done a great deal of good for your patients.

“This was not a case where you used any kind of force, you simply took advantage of the situation but what made it so serious is the breach of trust. The ladies involved were in a vulnerable position”.

Speaking after the sentencing Dorothy Wheeler, 78, of Grundisburgh, a former patient of Bull's said she was “gobsmacked”.

She said: “I have been treated by him for eight years and must have seen him 114 times. He never acted in an untoward manner towards me on any occasion. I am very upset”.

During his trial last month a jury heard that Bull had assaulted the women when they visited them at his home surgery for treatment for a variety of conditions.

One of those women was an undercover police officer who secretly videotaped Bull while he was with her in the surgery. They all said he had asked them to undress when they did not think it was necessary and several claimed he had made sexually suggestive comments to them during treatment.

Throughout the trial Bull maintained that he had used only proper and appropriate osteopathic techniques which had been misinterpreted by his victims. However the jury convicted him on four of the seven charges clearing him of one offence of indecent assault and two offences of sexual assault. The offences were carried out on women aged from their thirties to their seventies.