A former patient of a hospital consultant who is on trial for indecently assaulting six male teenagers in the 1970s and 1980s has told a jury that after each assault the doctor had told him: "You are a fine healthy boy."
The doctor, who cannot be named by order of Judge Michael O'Shea in Dundalk Circuit Criminal Court, has denied 11 counts of indecent assault on male teenagers which are alleged to taken place between February 1st, 1974, and August 31st, 1982.
Mr A (42) said he was 14 when, in 1975, he injured his leg in a football match and was taken to the casualty unit of his local hospital. However he was sent home and, when the injury had not healed a week later, he returned to the hospital.
It was at this stage that he first saw the former consultant who had him admitted to the hospital as an in-patient for two weeks to allow a torn muscle to heal.
He says it was during two follow-up visits as an outpatient in the hospital that he was assaulted. On each occasion he was in an examination cubicle with the doctor. He had removed his trousers and the doctor had examined his leg.
After this he said the doctor had put his hand on his stomach as if examining it and then continued to move his hand further down underneath his underwear and had indecently assaulted him.
He said the doctor had massaged his genitals. During the assault the doctor told him: "You are all right" and afterwards told him: "You are a fine healthy boy."
After the second assault in the hospital, Mr A said the doctor told him to make an appointment to see him in his private consulting rooms and it was there the third assault took place.
Cross-examined by Mr Felix McElroy for the accused, Mr A said he had first made a complaint to gardaí on March 1st, 1994. This followed a period of time receiving psychiatric care, medication and therapy while living in Britain.
The court heard Mr A had worked there for a large retail chain and on five occasions been the victim of beatings as a result of that work. It was after the fifth and most serious beating that he was referred for psychiatric treatment.
As well as making a statement of complaint to gardaí, he has also started a civil claim against the defendant, the hospital and the health board.
Mr A was twice visited by a Garda superintendent in Britain and during the second visit said the superintendent asked him if he knew the second complainant Mr B, and if he had colluded with him. Mr A told the court he did not know the person and did not know a second complaint had been made.
Mr McElroy said Mr A had been a public patient in the hospital and that in his diary for 1975 the accused has no record of seeing him in his private rooms.
When he asked Mr A who had paid for the private visit, he said he did not know and had often wondered about it over the years.
The trial continues this morning.