A woman sexually abused and “groped” by a family doctor believes “he got what he deserved.”

Mary, 51, was speaking out after former GP Dr Navin Zala was jailed for 11 years on 10 counts of indecent assault this week.

Hove Crown Court heard 63-year-old Zala attacked women at his Marling Way surgery in Gravesend - under the guise of giving them treatment.

Now Mary, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, said the attacks - dating back to the late 1980s - have left her feeling unable to completely trust doctors again.

Mary visited the family doctor on several occasions when she was in her twenties and living in the town with her parents.

But he subjected her to several breast examinations - even when she was visiting him for conditions such as flu or tonsilitis.

On a visit in 1988 the doctor told her he would need to undertake an internal examination.

She said: "What followed was a completely shocking, lewd and intrusive act.”

“The next thing I remember was being in the car. I don’t even know how I got out of the surgery.

“I was just totally shocked and trying to catch my breath - suddenly everything fell into place and I realised that over the years he had not been examining me, he’d been groping me.”

Mary, then 26, never went back to the doctor and kept quiet about the assault, only telling family and friends over time.

“I was very angry and felt I couldn’t do anything about it, but I’ve come to realise over the last few years that he wasn’t just doing it to me.”

Zala was arrested in September 2011 and, as the investigation by police and the NHS developed, he was charged with eight counts of indecent assault on two victims.

It was only after reading that Zala had been struck off after a series of police investigations and criminal trials that Mary wrote to the General Medical Council.

He was eventually charged with 11 counts of indecent assault on three women, including Mary, and was sentenced for 10 of them this week. He was found not guilty of the other one.

Mary said: “I’ve been very lucky, but I think some of the other women's lives have been far more devastated.”

“I’ve been very lucky, but I think some of the other women's lives have been far more devastated” - Mary

“He ignored the law, he thought he was above the law - that he wasn’t going to get caught and even at the trial he kept lying until the end.”

Mary, who's since moved away from the area, said she was amazed at the length of the sentence and has called on other women who have been abused to speak out.

“It reflects the seriousness of what he did, we trusted him and he abused that trust.”

“It sends out a strong message to the victims that you will be listened to, but also a strong message to any other doctors if they think they can get away with it.”

“I feel like I’ve taken control of it now, he’s not in control of me.”

“I wasn’t traumatised by it, I was extremely upset and I felt very raw about it for a long time and that he made me feel like a fool but in the end justice found him and I don’t feel a fool anymore.”