Fahey checked rape victims in police role

By ALISON HORWOOD

Christchurch doctor Morgan Fahey, imprisoned yesterday for sex crimes against patients, had a contract with police that required him to examine rape victims.

Fahey was a police medical officer in Christchurch between the late 1960s and the early 1980s.

Police documents give one of the duties of a medical officer as "obtaining medical evidence from the clinical examination of alleged victims of sexual and other assaults."

Other duties include medical examinations at suicides, taking blood from intoxicated motorists, giving evidence in court, giving medical check-ups to new recruits and caring for people in police custody.

In the High Court at Christchurch yesterday, Justice Hensen sentenced 68-year-old Fahey to a total of six years' imprisonment for 13 sex crimes against 11 women over 30 years.

Last week in court the silver-haired doctor, former Deputy Mayor of Christchurch and community worker, bit back tears as he pleaded guilty to one charge of rape, one of sexual violation and 11 of indecent assault.

Yesterday, several people in the packed public gallery held their heads in their hands as a police summary read to the court told how Fahey raped a heavily pregnant woman who came to his surgery for advice on neo-natal care and childbirth in 1970.

The sexual violation charge relates to his digital penetration of a woman who sought his advice in 1994 about a red vein running from her groin down her right leg.

The 11 counts of indecent assault from 1966 involve using a vibrator on female patients, touching their breasts and genitals, holding and kissing women and forcing a woman to hold his penis while he ejaculated.

Christchurch Detective Sergeant Mark Bouvet said the charges Fahey faced were "the tip of an iceberg."

Many other women had kept quiet.

Fahey, a Christchurch City councillor for 20 years, fathered at least one child from his crimes.

More than 20 years ago, a woman who claimed he raped her gave birth to his daughter. She made a police statement but did not want to take the matter further.

Maggie Leask, police media liaison officer for Christchurch, confirmed that Fahey was a police medical officer who stopped work in the early 1980s.

"There were never any concerns about him - he left of his own volition," she said.

Asked if his job involved examining victims of sex abuse, she said: "He would have probably, yes."

Another police representative said that during the 1970s, three or four doctors would have had contracts with police in Christchurch.

"They have a panel of doctors they can call on. When something like a rape happens and the police need to examine somebody, they bring in one of those doctors who they know and who understands what the police process is about."

Maggie Leask said that during the 1970s, medical examinations of rape victims would have been done with a nurse in the room, although a retired Christchurch detective from that period said he could not remember that happening.

Maggie Leask said all police records from that period were now archived in Wellington.

Fahey was also a medical examiner for Ansett New Zealand.

One of the women who complained about him, Trish Allen - a former nurse who joined Ansett in 1997 - said last night that she told her supervisor at the time that her medical examination had been inappropriate.

Her supervisor admitted that a number of complaints had been made over the years, and she believed the police were looking into Fahey.

She put her complaint in writing, but didn't send it.

Nevertheless she thought Ansett would follow up her earlier complaint.

"I think they've fallen down."