Carmody told woman’s late father cancer ‘not a problem’

A DAUGHTER of a deceased 58-year-old cancer victim told a court how Dr Paschal Carmody told her father that he would cure his cancer.

At Ennis Circuit Court, Mairead O’Donnell said that Carmody told her father, John Sheridan, on October 16, 2001, at the East Clinic in Killaloe “we can blast these, it’s not a problem”.

Mr Sheridan of Kells, Co Kilkenny, had cancer in his liver and died 11 months later in November 2002.

Recalling their meeting with Carmody, Ms O’Donnell said Carmody told her father that he “was the ideal candidate for the photodynamic therapy treatment”.

Ms O’Donnell told the court that Carmody said, “John, don’t worry about it. We can cure you basically.”

Under cross-examination, Ms O’Donnell denied she was confusing Carmody’s words with what his colleague, Dr Bill Porter, had told her father.

In the case, Carmody, aged 62, of Ballycuggeran, Killaloe, is pleading not guilty to defrauding family members of two cancer patients of €16,554 in 2001-02.

Carmody has pleaded not guilty to seven deception charges totalling €9,610 in relation to defrauding parents Derek and Christina O’Sullivan concerning the PDT treatment given under false pretences to their son, Conor, on dates between July and October 2002.

Carmody has also pleaded not guilty to obtaining by deception €6,944 from John Sheridan in November 2001 through the administration of PDT.

Later in court, cancer expert Prof Frank Sullivan said it was “wholly inappropriate” that PDT treatment was provided to 15-year-old Conor O’Sullivan.

Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Galway University Hospital, Prof Sullivan said he “could not conceive how PDT was useful” for Conor.

The trial continues today.