Top doctor from Bedford given suspended sentence for spying on girl in shower

One of the UK’s top doctors was today (June 3) handed a suspended sentence after spying on a teenage girl while she was showering.
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Dr Jonathan Fielden, 55, formerly of Stoke Road, Linslade, and now living in Biddenham, appeared at Luton Crown Court to plead guilty to a single count of voyeurism.

Fielden, formerly head of commissioning at NHS England and also medical director of University College London,was the UK’s third highest-paid doctor on an annual salary of £224,999.

But the court heard that a “confluence” of pressures led the doctor to “self destruct”, and he began doing “things that would make him feel bad”.

Sentencing him to a five-month suspended sentence, Judge Richard Foster said: “It’s tragic to see you, a man of such, no doubt brilliance in your career,a hard-working man at the pinnacle of your career, responsible for a substantial part of the NHS budget, fall from grace in the way you have because of what you stupidly did.”

The judge referred to the devastating impact the offence had caused on the girl and her family, whose mother is taking anti-depressants.

Fielden was handed a five-month sentence suspended for 12 months, and ordered to carry out 150 hours unpaid work, 30 days of rehabilitation requirement activity, and costs of £3,500.

He was also given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

The judge stated that an immediate custodial sentence would have been inevitable had it not been for many “glowing references of good character”.

Fielden attended Bedford School and trained at the University of Bristol. He now works in research.