Doctor struck off after indecently assaulting teen family members

A paediatrician who indecently assaulted two teenage family members has been struck off by New Zealand's health watchdog.

The two young women had been living with him while they studied at university.

The doctor pleaded guilty in March 2021 and was convicted in the Auckland District Court of two representative charges of indecent assault. He served five months of home detention.

Following the completion of that sentence, the decision from the Health Practitioner’s Disciplinary Tribunal has now been released, striking him off the medical register.

The two women, aged 17 and 19 at the time, moved in with the doctor in 2009. Dr A, as he was referred to by the tribunal, was working at a local hospital as a paediatric registrar.

The names of the paediatrician, the two young women and the city where they lived are suppressed to protect the identities of the victims.

Dr A initially began requesting hugs from both victims, who described becoming uncomfortable with how long the hugs would last - 30 to 40 seconds. These hugs continued over the period of a year.

Dr A’s behaviour also included touching and stroking one of the women on both the outside and inside her clothing. On multiple occasions he entered her bedroom in the early hours of the morning and got into bed next to her.

On one occasion, he asked the victim to sit next to him on the couch so that they could play a game. He touched her thigh and attempted to lift her blouse above her breasts. The victim pushed Dr A’s hand away and immediately got up off the couch.

The tribunal further detailed an incident when Dr A entered the second woman’s bedroom, got into her single bed and lay next to her. When she sat up to get out of bed, he grabbed her by the wrist before allowing her to exit at the foot of the bed.

On another occasion, Dr A got into bed with both victims and touched one of them. She pushed him away, got out of bed and woke her family member to remove her from the situation.

In a submission to the tribunal, Dr A said he had mental health issues. He has been on medications for depression, anxiety and panic attacks. He has also had heart bypass surgery.

Dr A expressed his remorse and provided copies of apology letters. He said he has voluntarily engaged in psychological counselling, psychiatric treatment and restorative justice to address the behaviour that gave rise to the offending.

He blamed his repeated offending on isolation from family, loneliness, stress of working as a registrar and repeated failures in clinical examinations.

He referred to a completion of sentence report which said he had a low risk of reoffending.

In April 2021, Dr A advised he had decided to retire and had ceased working 19 months earlier. He was willing to sign a voluntary undertaking agreeing not to practise medicine.

But he made a submission to the tribunal suggesting he might return to work as a doctor. He said: “Although I had earlier planned to stop practising medicine due to my age and health issues, circumstances have now improved to a level that I would like to get back to work to be able to support myself now as well as later into retirement."

The judge in the criminal court case in 2021 noted that Dr A did not use two previous opportunities to apologise to the victims and only apologised after police laid charges.

Judge Winter said at the time: “This conduct was a gross breach of the trust that these two young women and their families had placed in Dr A. He was the person that they should have been able to trust the most when away from their immediate families. He put his own needs above theirs and exploited the position he was in, as a senior family member, having them stay in his house.”

Although the victim impact statements were not made available to the tribunal, Judge Winter described the statements as making for “chilling reading”, noting that “the impact of the offending is long-lasting and has had serious consequences” on the lives of both victims.

A possible sentence of 18 months imprisonment was reduced to home detention.

The tribunal's Professional Conduct Committee (PCC) said Dr A’s correspondence to date still indicates a lack of remorse or understanding about his offending. This is reflected in his submission to the committee, where he described the offending as “unfortunate incidents” and that he “had an unfortunate experience in 2009”.

Noting Dr A's lack of genuine remorse, the tribunal said "we agree with the PCC. If Dr A had not realised the enormity of these convictions at the time he pleaded guilty, he must have realised when he avoided a term of imprisonment only by serving a period of home detention.

“It is difficult for the Tribunal to comprehend how Dr A could plead guilty to two representative charges of indecent assault, which included touching his [family members’s] buttocks underneath her clothing (skin on skin) and attempting to lift his [family member’s] blouse to expose her breasts, and then ask the Tribunal to accept that there was nothing sexual in his conduct. The Tribunal does not accept this submission."

Dr A was struck off the register and is not allowed to apply to re-register for three years. He was also ordered to pay a 40% contribution to of the costs of the PCC and the tribunal of $9,150.25.

The Medical Council confirmed Dr A has been struck off the register. He has not held a valid practising certificate since April 2021.

If he reapplies for registration, he would first need to satisfactorily complete a "sexual misconduct assessment test" before the council would consider his application. If he were ever to be re-registered, conditions would apply.

“Council’s primary purpose is to protect the public health and safety of New Zealanders, and this is the touchstone against which the Council considers every decision about individual doctors,” it said.

Executive Director of the Auckland Sexual Abuse HELP Foundation, Kathryn McPhillips, said It is often difficult to see how a length of sentence for sexual crimes relates to the offending which occurred and the harm which was done.

"One factor in this is that in New Zealand sentences are normally served concurrently, rather than sequentially so it can seem like the fact that someone hurt multiple people doesn’t count in the consequences imposed by the court," McPhillips said.

"We often hear from victims that what they want most is for the person to never do this again to them or to anyone else. Some kind of detention is one way of achieving this for a period of time, but many victims would also like to see compulsory treatment as part of the sentence. Establishment of treatment courts would be a good step towards this.

"The reports of this person’s offending suggest a real lack of knowledge of or respect for appropriate boundaries. Such lack of judgement over a significant period of time, would bring into question whether a person who had committed these crimes could ever resume a medical role in which they were working with people and their bodies.

"We would hope that any reconsideration of registration in these situations would focus on assessments of safety, undertaken by those with knowledge of both offending and impacts on victims of that offending."