Ex-doctor faces trial over ‘defrauding’ dying patients

THE High Court has cleared the way for a former doctor to be tried on charges of defrauding a number of terminally ill cancer patients.

In a judgment delivered yesterday Mr Justice John Hedigan rejected claims by Paschal Carmody, aged 61, with an address at Ballycuggaran, Killaloe, Co Clare, that there had been a delay by the DPP in bringing the charges against him.

The judge held there was “no delay capable of giving rise to an unfair trial”.

He also dismissed the claim that Carmody’s right to a fair trial had been prejudiced due to the unavailability of a witness, a former patient who has died.

Carmody is facing charges related to obtaining money from terminally ill cancer patients and their families by deception at the East Clinic in Killaloe on dates between 2001 and 2002.

A complaint was made to gardaí in early 2004 and an investigation started in July of that year.

He previously went on trial in June 2008 at Ennis Circuit Court.

The jury on that occasion returned not guilty verdicts on six of 17 charges before them and could not agree a verdict on the 11 remaining charges.

In December 2008 the DPP said he intended to retry Carmody on those 11 charges.

Carmody has denied all the charges and has also denied he ever promised anybody he could “cure cancer”.

The DPP, rejected claims the unavailability of a deceased former patient of Carmody, Mark Hadden, would result in a unfair trial.

Carmody had contended Mr Hadden, who died a month before Carmody’s first trial, would have given important evidence.

In his judgment Mr Justice Hedigan said that while “the investigation took longer than might be wished” no evidence had come before the court of any unreasonable period of delay during this Garda investigation.