|
|
Allegations of Sexual
Abuse in NZ |
|
|
|
|
A New Plymouth doctor accused of
multiple sex offences against his patients has been committed for trial in
the High Court. The doctor has been charged with
sex offences against 10 women patients during medical consultations in the
1980s and 1990s. Judge Rea yesterday decided there
was sufficient evidence to send the case to trial, after a
1<<1/2>>-day depositions hearing in the New Plymouth District
Court. In court yesterday, the doctor
denied 20 charges of indecent assault and two charges of sexual violation. The 10 women complainants did not
appear during the hearing, but had provided written evidence to the court.
That evidence alleged the women had undergone prolonged and unnecessary
intimate examinations. Three witnesses for the Crown
appeared at the hearing. They were independent medical expert John Drummond,
the New Plymouth CIB officer in charge of the case, Detective Sergeant Debbie
Gower, and the mother of one of the complainants, whose name is automatically
suppressed. The complainant, who was 15 when
she first consulted the accused doctor, has alleged five indecent assaults
took place during different examinations over a period of about a year, from
1983 to 1984. On the stand yesterday, her mother
told Crown prosecutor Cherie Clarke her then 16-year-old daughter, who had
moved out of home, called her one evening, very upset. "It was unusual for her to be
in that state. She was crying and saying what had happened to her that day.
About what (doctor's name) had done to her, and how he examined her, and I
said to her that it was not right," she said. She said her daughter claimed the
doctor pushed his erect penis into her leg and fondled her breasts. "She said she ran out crying and
the nurse asked her what was wrong, but she was so upset she just ran out and
then told a lady at work." The mother told the court her
daughter said to her later that the doctor had done something similar before.
While her daughter stopped seeing
the doctor, the witness' elderly, unwell mother continued to see him. She
said that during a visit to his practice with her mother, about a month after
her daughter complained to her, the doctor had tried to talk to her. She had remained in her car
outside the surgery. "He came out to see me. I
wound up the window and turned the radio up, but I heard him say (her
daughter's) name. But I drove off and left him standing on the side of the
road." The doctor's lawyer, Auckland QC
Harry Waalkens, asked the witness if her daughter gave her any more details
about the alleged incident. "I can't remember everything
that was said, but she didn't want to tell me more about it . . . . She was
embarrassed." The woman told Mr Waalkens she
asked her daughter to ring the family's previous GP and talk to him about
what had happened, which the girl did. Complainants also described having
to strip and stand naked in front of the doctor without being offered any
covering, being asked intimate questions about their sex lives and having
their nipples rubbed. The doctor, who is still
practising, but cannot carry out intimate examinations except in an
emergency, was remanded on bail until February 8 for a High Court call-over
in New Plymouth. His name suppression continues. |
