109 files on Shine sent to DPP

GARDAÍ investigating claims struck-off doctor Michael Shine sexually abused patients have sent 109 cases to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

The Irish Examiner has learned that in recent days officers in Drogheda have concluded their long-running inquiries and forwarded the files as part of the next step in a potential criminal case.

The claims centre around the actions of Mr Shine, 80, during his time as a consultant surgeon at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda between the late 1960s and 1995, when he also had a private practice at nearby Fair Street.

Mr Shine, who has always protested his innocence, was cleared of 11 indecent assault sample charges in a 2003 Dundalk Circuit Criminal Court case.

However, he was struck off the medical register during a private Medical Council fitness-to-practise hearing in 2008.

This decision — which centred on inappropriate behaviour towards young male patients — was based on evidence provided by three alleged victims, files on two of whom were also sent to the DPP in the late 1990s but not used in the 2003 court case.

On May 5 last year, Mr Shine was arrested in his Dublin city apartment and brought to Drogheda garda station for questioning, before being released without charge.

The garda probe has been hampered by missing patient files Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital was statutorily obliged to keep, while then health minister Mary Harney refused to open a fresh inquiry into the patients’ claims last year.

The 109 files that will potentially form the basis of a new case against Mr Shine were sent to the DPP just four months after the 80-year-old settled a long-standing private civil case against him.

Mr Shine, who retired on a full pension in the mid-1990s, wrote to Ms Harney last summer claiming he could not afford any pay-out and asking the state for support.

The request was made after the Medical Defence Union refused to support him, but was turned down by Ms Harney.

The private civil case was first lodged against Mr Shine in the late 1990s but suffered repeated delays due to his then legal team’s claims the physician could not get a fair hearing.

The claimant’s identity has not been revealed, and the exact details of the December settlement — including whether there was an admission of liability — are part of a gagging order insisted on by Mr Shine.

However, it is understood to be in the region of tens of thousands of euro.

Elsewhere, the victim support group Dignity4Patients is reportedly in dire financial difficulty, having seen its application for further Department of Health funding delayed in the past five months.