NAN) A 63-year-old doctor accused of having sex with his patients went on trial in the Southern German state of Bavaria on Monday, the prosecution said.

The prosecution alleged that the physician who was not been identified under Germany’s strict privacy laws exploited the trust of three of his female mentally unstable patients by having sex with them without treating them.

“A trained psychotherapist, the doctor committed the acts either in his practice or in the women’s homes.

“He could face imprisonment of three months to five years if found guilty,” the prosecution said.

The doctor had regularly asked mentally ill patients to come to his surgery between 2012 and 2015 usually in the late evening hours, prosecutors said in an earlier statement on the case.

He is alleged to have told the women that sex was part of the therapy.