Patient: Doctor put hand down my pants

Dr David Lim is accused of indecently assaulting patients. Photo/Duncan Brown

A young male said he felt "disgusted" after being treated by a doctor charged with indecent assault, a court has heard.

David Kang Huat Lim, 41, is standing trial in the Napier District Court after pleading not guilty to five charges of stupefying and eight of indecent assault.

Crown prosecutor Steve Manning said Lim administered the sedative drug Midazolam on four male patients before sexually assaulting them while he was working as a GP at The Doctors clinic in Hastings in 2014.

The man, who was 18 at the time of the incident, was seen by Lim in September 2014 for treatment on his dislocated finger.

He said he was administered Midazolam twice during his visit, Lim having failed to fix the dislocation after the first dose.

He described feeling "drunk" after the second dose and said when he came to his pants were removed and had been folded and placed on a chair.

It was at this point that The Doctors practice nurse Anna McKinley said she distinctly heard the man cry out "Why are you touching my balls?"

She said she was stunned and immediately pulled the curtain back to see what was going on.

"I noticed a stunned look on Dr Lim's face. It's like I can equate it to a child being caught with his hand in a cookie jar.

"I just couldn't believe that this was happening to him, that he was being touched by the doctor that was meant to be there to look after him."

The man said he was then moved by Lim to an enclosed, darkened room to "sleep".

"I can remember lying on the bed and while I was lying there I felt his hand go down my pants.

"He cried as he described feeling "disgusted" and said although it felt like a dream, he was "100 per cent" sure Lim had handled his private parts.

"I didn't think I should [tell anyone]. I thought it was a dream really. I thought about it all the next day."

The man said he didn't expect a doctor to do that, stating "Everyone trusts a doctor".

In his opening address yesterday Lim's defence counsel, Harry Waalkens, QC, said Lim "categorically denies" the allegations and that Lim being "overtly gay" created a situation "ripe for misunderstanding".

"We anticipate that it's likely each of these four young men recognised that when they came into the consultation they knew that he was demonstrably, overtly as I say, a gay person."

When questioned about Lim's behaviour around the male victim on that particular day McKinley described it as "flirtatious".

"He was making a lot of eye contact, he was laughing, giggling. He was prancing around being very expressive with his hands."

Waalkens proposed McKinley had put a "negative spin" on what she had heard and seen, pointing out the fact that she waited until the next morning to report the incident and did not mention that Lim's behaviour was flirtatious.

"It beggars belief that you wouldn't have done something about it," he said.

McKinley said she was in shock and the most startling thing to report was the fact she thought the patient had been sexually assaulted.

She added she was told not to say anything to anybody before speaking to police.

The court heard from emergency medicine expert Dr Craig Ellis yesterday, who testified Midazolam was "used extensively" in the emergency department at Hawke's Bay Hospital and was given to patients to alleviate their anxiety and give them a "form of amnesia".

Having formerly headed the Hawke's Bay Hospital's emergency department, Ellis testified the department followed stringent protocol of having at least two people present at all times during procedures for the safety of both the patient and the doctor.

He said while hallucinations did occur, he had administered the drug hundreds of time and never knowingly had a patient suffer hallucinations of a sexual nature.

The trial is set to continue into next week.