He faces eight charges alleging misconduct including continuing to practise after being suspended, failing to properly retain and store clinical records between 2016 and 2019 which were lost due to flooding, then kept in his car, and then more being misplaced after moving them again.
He’s also accused of performing cervical (neck) manipulations on nine occasions to four clients when he should not have done so, providing acupuncture when he shouldn’t have, and failing to comply with general standards of practice.
In her evidence, the woman claimed that while she filled out an ACC form, the man slid into the back of the chair behind her with his legs on either side of her and started adjusting her posture.
She then asked him to move, to which she said he responded, “f*** the ACC form, don’t worry about that”, the first of many swear words he used, she said.
However, in his evidence, the physio denied sitting behind her, stating he wouldn’t have fit on the chair anyway, but instead stood behind her and straightened her shoulders.
He also denied swearing - at all - telling the tribunal he doesn’t like it.
“It’s unnecessary,” and as for ACC, he said that was “just her imagination”.
Now standing, she claimed he moved her into “bizarre” positions using his torso and chest to apply pressure to adjust her into position as she stood.
After about five minutes she was asked to lie on the plinth, working on her middle and lower back, and at times had his hands on her lower back and was pressing his chest against her.
“When I was lying on my back his chest was against my chest, and when I was lying on my stomach his chest was against my back.
“I would describe it as intimate contact . . . it was uncomfortable and intimate. I felt very vulnerable.”
She asked him what he was doing and why but felt his answers were “very distant” with no professional explanation.
“No explanation of ‘this is what I’m doing, this is why I’m doing it’, so it was very confusing.”
Near the end of the appointment, she claimed he told her she wasn’t getting enough hugs, described how to hug, and “that you should have heart-to-heart hugs”.
“The next thing I knew, he grabbed me and was hugging me.”
Although it was a bizarre experience, the woman said she gave him the benefit of the doubt when booking another appointment, more so because neither her neck nor shoulders felt better.
At the next appointment, she arrived to find him treating someone outside on the grass.
She agreed to have the appointment outside because there were people around.
During the session she claimed he started talking about “weed” and if she had any objections to it, and also him using the word “c***”.
A lawyer for the physiotherapist, Duncan McGill, asked her if she simply overheard a conversation he had with a previous client, talking about medicinal cannabis, which she denied.
“Lots of people talk about medicinal cannabis or weed,” McGill put to her.
“In my opinion, I didn’t go there to hear [the physio] talk about weed,” she replied.
At one point, she felt a rib pop as he was kneeling pressure with open palms into the upper half of her back.
She said they both got a big fright and went back inside.
He then took off his t-shirt, stating it was “hot outside”, she claimed, and then asked her to take her shorts and top off, which she thought unusual, but agreed.
However, she said there was no offer of anything to cover herself with and nothing she could see around to use.
McGill said his client would testify that he did point to a gown hanging on the back of the door as well as towels.
“That was completely untrue. There was no towel to put over me,” she said.
As for him straddling her from behind on top of the plinth as she lay face down, McGill said his client would deny that happened.
“I know he says that, but I know in my heart, I know what happened and how unprofessional it was.
“He did have my legs spread and was pulling himself towards me.”
She said she was also shocked when he undid her bra strip to tape up her sore rib.
McGill asked her why she booked a second appointment if she felt so uncomfortable, suggesting she wasn’t uncomfortable at all.
“That wasn’t the case.
“I trusted him . . . perhaps that was just a bizarre day that he was having.”
The physio denied asking her to take off her pants, his chest never touched her back, and he “certainly did not put [the patient] into any unusual positions”.
He told the tribunal the whole session was mainly about her lower back, and when pressed by Jonathan Coates, for the Professional Standards Committee, he confirmed he was sure, but was going by his memory.
He claimed when she returned for her second appointment, her symptoms had “significantly improved”, her pain had eased, and increased her range of movement.
There were occasions he’d taken his top off in the “height of summer”, but it was only by permission of a patient, and he denied asking her to remove her pants.
He accepted he wasn’t wearing any shoes that day but normally wore “business Jandals”.
Asked by Coates what they were, he replied, “Jandals that look good”.
However, he accepted other allegations about carrying out cervical manipulations without proper qualifications and failing to comply with several general standards around health and safety.
He will continue to give evidence today.
Belinda Feek has been a reporter for 19 years, and at the NZ Herald for eight years before joining the Open Justice team in 2021.
