Doctor accused of assaulting girl, 15

A North Cork doctor was put on trial yesterday on a charge of indecently assaulting a 15-year-old girl during a medical examination before Christmas 1989.

Dr Kevin Mulcahy, aged 55, of Cregane, Lombardstown, Mallow, pleaded not guilty.

The complainant, now aged 38, said Dr Mulcahy was visiting the house regularly to treat her mother, who was seriously ill.

The complainant testified that she had a cold at the time and Dr Mulcahy examined her in her bedroom.

She said that at the outset they spoke about how ill her mother was, and she became upset and the doctor gave her a hug to comfort her.

“He asked me did I know how to examine my breasts [for possible lumps]. I took off my top and my bra. I would have been naked from the waist up,” she said.

She said he carried out a physical examination of her breasts and then asked her to perform the exam on herself. She said he asked her if she had a boyfriend and if she knew what sex was.

“He started touching me around my vagina. I was clothed when this happened,” she testified.

Donal McCarthy, prosecuting, in opening the case to the jury, said: “At 15 she did not know precisely what this meant. Now she knows it [touching vagina] had nothing to do with a head cold or feeling fluey or anything like that.”

Dr Mulcahy testified: “I have no recollection of what she stated here today… As far as I am concerned it never happened.”

Cross-examined by Mr McCarthy, he said he did not recall ever attending on the teenager in her home.

Mr McCarthy said the nature of the breast examination described by the complainant might have been normal but not in so far as the alleged rubbing of the girl’s vagina outside her clothing. The barrister suggested that what she was describing in court was correct and that the accused simply did not recall it. Dr Mulcahy replied: “As far as I am concerned she is not correct.”

Blaise O’Carroll, defence senior counsel, asked the jury if it had the ring of truth in the context of her attending the same doctor the following summer for hay fever and contacting him in recent years in relation to an appointment for her father.

Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin will address the jury today and ask them to deliberate on their verdict.