Doctor in cancer case has left country

THE DOCTOR who administered the photodynamic therapy (PDT) treatment to terminally ill cancer patients at the East Clinic in Killaloe, Co Clare, has left the jurisdiction.

Addressing the jury yesterday in the trial of Paschal Carmody (60), Ballycuggeran, Killaloe, Pat Marrinan SC said that "one of the problems is that Dr William Porter is no longer in the jurisdiction and has left the country".

Mr Carmody is pleading not guilty to 25 separate charges of obtaining €80,172 from six terminally ill cancer patients and their families by deception between September 2001 and October 2002.

Counsel for Mr Carmody, Mr Marrinan said Dr Porter is "a US gentleman" and the €7,500 cheque paid by Christina and Derek O'Sullivan for the PDT treatment for their 15-year-old son, Conor was not paid to Mr Carmody but to PDT Ltd, where a Mattie Murphy and the wife of William Porter, Maggie, were the directors.

Mr Marrinan said: "They had their own bank account and they rented a room from the East Clinic. Mr Carmody had no association and nothing to do with the PDT centre."

He said Mr Carmody wasn't involved in administering the PDT treatment or receiving any money for the treatment.

According to Christina O'Sullivan, Dr Porter told her that his wife Maggie had breast cancer but the PDT treatment had cured her.

However, counsel for the State Denis Vaughan Buckley SC said Ms Porter has since died. He showed a document to the court that Mr Carmody was "medical director" of the PDT centre.

Mr Marrinan said a cancer patient of Mr Carmody's, Mark Hadden from Co Wexford, had defied the odds and conventional medicine by staying alive six to eight years after being given only three months to live. He died recently.

"Mr Hadden was told that he was a hopeless case, to go home and die, but he fought on and had a wonderful experience under Paschal Carmody".

In evidence, Ms O'Sullivan said she visited Mr Hadden before going to the East Clinic in 2002.

Mr Marrinan said that Ms O'Sullivan had been buoyed up after her visit to Mr Hadden and by leaving this meeting out of her statement to gardaí, she was putting all the burden on Mr Carmody.

In response, Ms O'Sullivan said: "I don't want to be here. This is not going to bring my son back. I have no feelings for that man [Mr Carmody].

"I just want justice for the way he conned everyone out of fees and for the promises he made that he didn't deliver. I am sitting here telling the truth."

Ms O'Sullivan repeated that Mr Carmody said that he would cure her son or at worst keep him alive. She said: "I have not said this before, but he also said 'Doctors up in Dublin don't know the good work we are doing down here.'"

Mr Marrinan said Ms O'Sullivan deliberately left things out in her evidence.

He said Mr Carmody held out no promise that he would cure her son but the possibility that the treatment could be successful.

The jury also heard yesterday that a 45-year-old Cork woman suffering with cancer was "euphoric" after receiving treatment at the clinic operated by Mr Carmody.

However, after returning home to Cork following the treatment her health rapidly disimproved and she died four days later.

The trial continues.