'He was gaslighting me': Ex-partner speaks of rapist surgeon's double life

'He was gaslighting me': Ex-partner speaks of rapist surgeon's double life

ByRebecca Ricks

BBC South West Investigations

Former NHS surgeon Salil Korambayil has been convicted of rape. As he serves a 14-year sentence for his crimes, the mother of his child describes the harrowing experience of learning about her now ex-partner's crimes.

Returning home from a play date with her baby, new mum Angharad found her partner "curled up in a ball, rocking on the sofa".

A trainee surgeon at Royal Cornwall Hospital, Salil Korambayil had been sent home from work – accused, he claimed, of something he did not do.

"There was a sturdy bang on the door," Angharad says. "Then an officer came and said, 'we're arresting your partner for sexual assault'."

Officers searched their home for hours, rifling through personal belongings.

"I felt so vulnerable," says Angharad. "[Like] how is this happening? How is this my life?"

The pair had met at East Surrey Hospital in October 2016 when she was a newly qualified nurse and he was a junior doctor.

She had not long been out of a relationship and found him sweet and caring.

"He showered you with support, would always be there for you when you needed him," Angharad recalls. "He was so charming."

Within a few months, they were officially a couple and he had met her friends and parents.

When Korambayil moved to north Devon for his planned hospital rotation in 2019, Angharad followed a few months later. The pair started work at the same hospital and moved in together.

"I'd get home from work and there'd be dinner laid out ready for me with a glass of wine, there'd be a note on the dinner saying, 'I hope you had a good shift'," she says. "He could be so sweet."

But soon, there were rumours about Korambayil's behaviour – both at work and outside it too – which he would sometimes pre-emptively warn her about.

"He would be very clever, he would say quite bluntly and openly, 'oh, so-and-so said I touched their bum but I didn't do that," recalls Angharad. "It was all 'poor me, I don't know what I am doing wrong'.

When people told her they had seen him out with other people, he reassured her and made her feel secure, she adds.

"Everything now, in hindsight, was the truth. It makes me feel stupid for believing him. I feel like I was under some sort of strange spell," she continues.

In August 2020, a woman made an accusation of rape to Devon and Cornwall Police about Korambayil.

However, according to the force, she was not in a position to support an investigation at the time and the complaint went no further.

Angharad, who was pregnant at the time, says Korambayil told her it was a "lie, a malicious allegation" and now does not understand how he managed to "pull the wool over my eyes".

"When I look back I realise he was gaslighting me, he was emotionally abusing me, he would make me feel awful for things or control situations and I had no idea it was happening at the time," she explains.

Angharad says Korambayil's efforts to bury the truth worked and their baby was born in November 2020 – a period that left her emotional and vulnerable. Then in April 2021, Korambayil unexpectedly arrived home early from work.

"He said, 'I've been suspended'… that he had looked into people's information but it wasn't anything sinister," Angharad says.

But within hours, police had arrested him on suspicion of rape.

Angharad left their home that night and took the baby to stay with family, feeling scared and worried.

"One night I went to my dad [and] it was like I was his baby again, I sat on his lap and bawled my eyes out," she says.

Korambayil was charged a year later with three counts of rape relating to two women, and at the end of 2023 a court found him guilty and sentenced him to 14 years in prison.

However, in October he won an appeal case. After employing a private investigator, new information was brought to light that judges agreed should have been made available to a jury.

As a result, a retrial was granted which the media could not report until the end of the case.

His defence barrister told the jury Korambayil had "lied heavily" to his partner and also lied to NHS bosses, but claimed he did not lie to the police.

During the retrial, it emerged he had raped one of the women while Angharad was pregnant and the other while the baby was three months old. None of the victims knew about his relationship.

One victim told the court the process of the appeal and retrial had "forced me back into the darkest period of my life".

Another has since said going through the trial process twice had left her with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Angharad watched in court as the victims gave evidence - in both trials.

"I have never experienced emotions in that courtroom that I had experienced before. It was harrowing," she says.

"I think they were brave to come forward to start with, to go through it the first time, then to go through it a second time - reliving it.

"I just hope that now they can have some sort of peace or for the pain to ease for them."

Korambayil was found guilty of three counts of rape on 25 June and was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

He was previously sentenced to two concurrent 12-month prison terms for unlawfully accessing people's confidential NHS information - including Angharad's.

'How will my child ever understand?'

In March, she found her former partner had illegally looked up her files on the NHS database on 10 separate occasions.

He had also looked up information about her friends, family, the victims he raped and a third woman who claimed to the BBC in 2024 she too had been raped by him.

Korambayil used social media to start conversations with women, often asking if he "recognised them from the hospital".

Angharad hopes the conviction will give victims of abuse the strength to come forward.

"I decided to speak out because I believe there could be other people out there," she says.

The last five years have come at a cost to Angharad, who experienced nightmares and still feels angry and distrustful of others.

She worries people will ask "how did she not see it?" and says while the court case has ended, it has been difficult to move on.

"I have a child that will need to know the truth and I don't know how I begin to explain that. How will my child ever understand the levels of manipulation?"

Detective Inspector Daniel Massey, who led the investigation, under the name Operation Humilis, said the force "will always actively investigate any such crime [sexual assault reports] and seek to bring those responsible to justice".

Anyone who thinks they may have been affected can contact the police quoting Operation Humilis.

If you've been affected by the issues raised in this article, help and support is available via BBC Action Line

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