A doctor accused of sexually assaulting two patients has said that one of the women is lying and said that "the whole of the Mater hospital staff" is working against him.
He accused a consultant in the Mater of sheltering behind the prosecutors to avoid responsibility and blamed a staff nurse for telling a patient that a vaginal examination was inappropriate.
Asked if the complaint made by the woman was the nurse's fault, he replied: "Exactly. Why did she misguide the woman by telling her that a doctor can't touch her? If a doctor can't touch you, who can?"
It was the 11th day of the trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court concerning allegations by two female patients of an incident at the Mater Hospital, on July 28th, 1997. Both women allege they were sexually molested by the doctor during examinations to assess if they were suitable for tonsil surgery.
Cross-examined by Mr Paul McDermott, prosecution, the accused man said he was not used to conditions in Irish hospitals. "You are talking about Irish conditions, I am talking about reality," he said. Asked about the vaginal examination of the first patient, he said: "My biggest mistake is that I'm not Irish and that I came to Ireland."
He added that he came here to gain experience. If he was interested in vaginal examinations, he said, he should have gone into gynaecology. He had gone into anaesthetics and no restrictions were placed on him.
He said that Dr Dermot Phelan, a consultant in the Mater Hospital, had shrugged his shoulders in the witness box at suggestions by another consultant that his actions were "improper".
"Dr Phelan didn't know if it was improper, and if he can make mistakes at this stage, then why isn't he defending me, instead of saying that there was no clinical justification for my actions?" he asked.
Judge Kieran O'Connor said the accused man was making a speech rather than answering questions, but the court would indulge him as it was important to set out his defence to the jury.
The doctor said he came to Ireland to learn, not to get himself into a situation where he could lose his career. "I have suffered a lot already" he said.
Asked by Mr McDermott why he did not enter details of a vaginal examination he carried out on the second alleged victim in clinical notes, he replied: "I missed many other points. It reflects that I am inexperienced."
Mr McDermott suggested it reflected that the fact that the his actions had nothing to do with a medical examination and all to do with self-gratification.
The doctor replied: "Mr prosecutor, I ask you or anyone else who thinks the same to go to gynaecology practice and all of your fantasies will go in a few weeks."
He agreed that he did not wash his hands between examining the two women. He further agreed that he had carried out an oral examination of the second woman but that his hand did not come in contact with her mouth.
He agreed that he had placed his hand on her left breast to check the location of her apex heartbeat, the strongest measure of blood flow in the heart. He denied that the best location to find this beat was underneath the breast.
He added that hygiene in Pakistani hospitals was much lower than in Ireland and that conditions were sometimes so bad that doctors had to give money to patients.
The reason he did not wash his hands was due to "inexperience or negligence" and later he said that the negligence was the responsibility of Dr Phelan, who did not give him adequate training. He denied that he had made false representations on a CV given to Dr Phelan concerning his level of experience in a Pakistani clinic.
"If Dr Phelan had any doubts, he could have asked me, but he did not." Earlier, he told Mr Martin Giblin SC, defending, about a meeting later that night in which he was challenged by the family of his first alleged victim.
He said the woman's mother was very angry and it was difficult to understand what the family were saying.
The trial continues before Judge O'Connor and a jury.