GARDAÍ IN Cork are to prepare a file for the Director of Public Prosecutions after arresting and questioning a GP about allegations that he sexually abused three teenage girls on a number of occasions when they were patients attending his surgery in the early 1990s.
The GP was arrested last month when he presented himself by appointment at his local Garda station for questioning by detectives.
He was arrested under section four of the Criminal Justice Act, which allows for detention for up to 24 hours.
He was questioned for eight hours before being released without charge and a file on the matter will be prepared for the DPP, a senior Garda source said.
The investigation began last autumn when one of the complainants contacted gardaí and alleged that she had been seriously sexually assaulted by the GP over a period of several months as a teenaged patient. Two other woman also came forward and made similar complaints against the GP, alleging they too had been sexually assaulted by the doctor while attending his surgery as patients when teenagers in the early 1990s.
It is understood all three complainants, all under 18 at the time but now in their mid- to late-30s, have alleged the assaults happened on more than one occasion and that the abuse continued in each case for several months.
Detectives searched the GP’s surgery under warrant earlier this year and confiscated medical records and notes kept by the doctor in relation to the three women and his treatment of them for differing conditions and ailments.
It is also understood none of the three teenage girls was suffering from any conditions that would have legitimately required the GP to touch their private parts as they alleged happened in the sexual assaults.
The GP has confirmed to gardaí that the three women were all patients whom he treated at the time, but he has denied any wrongdoing and firmly rejected the allegations that he sexually assaulted them.
The Irish Medical Council declined to comment on the case when contacted, saying that it cannot comment on individual registered practitioners.
However, when The Irish Times checked the council’s website, the GP remains listed as a registered doctor.
A statement explained that when the council receives a complaint about a doctor, its Preliminary Proceedings Committee must decide whether the case should go on to become an inquiry before the Fitness to Practice Committee.
If an inquiry is held in public, it is only at this stage that details of the complaint become available.
To make details of the complaint public before the inquiry could be deemed to prejudice the outcome, the council said.