Woman with toothache groped by GP, jury told

A Midlands GP has gone on trial on a charge of sexually assaulting a female patient.

The 38-year-old doctor denies assaulting the mother of three by groping her breasts after she had gone to him complaining of toothache. He pleaded not guilty to the single charge when arraigned before his trial at Mullingar Circuit Criminal Court, sitting in Tullamore.

Evidence is being heard by a jury of seven men and five women before Judge Keenan Johnson. The judge yesterday made an order prohibiting publication of the name of the doctor or the woman and also banned the publishing of photographs.

The woman told the court that on Sunday, August 18, 2013, she went to an out-of-hours service in the Midlands suffering from severe toothache after a wisdom tooth was filled some days earlier. The doctor had looked in her mouth with a torch and checked her ears and glands. He then squeezed her shoulders before putting his hands under her arms from behind.

He told her to sit up on an examination table and, when she queried him, he said that sometimes a toothache could lead to a heart infection. She was wearing a T-shirt with a string top underneath as he lay her down on the table. He again put the stethoscope to her chest and back.

“It was strange… with a toothache. He was putting an awful lot of effort into checking my chest for a toothache.

“He was staring at my chest, not my face and squeezing my breasts. He was holding onto the nipples. His nails dug into me. It cut — his nails were sharp.

“I was dumbfounded, shocked, mortified. He was at my nipples,” she said.

The woman said the doctor’s legs were beside her and he had a very visible erection.

She left immediately after he got her medication for her tooth. She told her sister, who was waiting outside, what had happened.

Gardaí interviewed the doctor in November 2013. He denied asking her to get onto the examination table or listening to her chest with a stethoscope.

When the woman’s statement of complaint was put to him he said: “I’m shocked. I have no words… it is so worrying… after reading this, someone would think that I am a sexual maniac.”

The case continues.