The Supreme Court has ruled that Dr James Barry has advanced no grounds that would allow him appeal a High Court decision to strike him off the medical register over secretly video-taping and carrying out inappropriate internal examinations of female patients.
The decision by the three-judge court yesterday brings to a close long-running proceedings between Dr Barry and the Medical Council which began after a complaint was made about the doctor in 1995.
Dr Barry (81), of Lauriston Lodge, Glanmire, Cork, was struck off the medical register by Mr Justice Peter Charleton last March after the judge upheld findings by the Medical Council that he was guilty of gross professional misconduct for secretly video-taping female patients and carrying out inappropriate internal examinations of them.
The eight patients involved included women who began attending Dr Barry as teenagers.
Last month Mr Justice Charleton rejected arguments by Dr Barry that the judge's decision raised points of law that required determination by the Supreme Court in what would effectively be an appeal against the High Court decision.
Dr Barry had argued that the High Court hearing, in which Dr Barry represented himself, was unfair because he lacked legal representation. Dr Barry said he was "impecunious". He also contended that Mr Justice Charleton had acted unfairly in refusing to order that Dr Barry should have access to employment records of one of the eight women who had made complaints against him. The judge ruled such records were irrelevant to the matters at issue.
Yesterday the Supreme Court upheld Mr Justice Charleton's findings that neither of the two arguments advanced by Dr Barry constituted points of law.
Mr Justice Nial Fennelly, presiding at the three-judge court and sitting with Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns and Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan, told Dr Barry, who was representing himself, that he could only bring an appeal on a specified point of law and neither of the matters raised was a point of law.
The judge told Dr Barry the court would make no order for costs of yesterday's brief application, meaning each side would pay their own costs.
Last March Mr Justice Charleton upheld the Medical Council's decision of September 12th, 2006, that Dr Barry was guilty of gross misconduct in relation to some former patients.
The judge said Dr Barry had subjected some patients to unnecessary digital penetration "for his own perverse purposes", made a pornographic video of one woman because he was "unable to control strongly ingrained perverted instincts", bullied another woman into having her hymen broken for no medical reason and engaged in "perverted abuse" of the doctor/patient relationship.
The case arose after a complaint was made in 1995 to the Medical Council alleging Dr Barry, who had practised in Cork city from the mid-1960s, had engaged in improper conduct with a patient.