Hastings doctor David Kang Huat Lim sedated patients to sexually assault them, court hears

David Kang Huat Lim is accused of stupefying and indecently assaulting four male patients while working as a GP at The Doctors in 2014. Photo/Duncan Brown

A Hastings doctor accused of stupefying and indecently assaulting patients used a drug to sedate them, a court has heard.

David Kang Huat Lim, 41, appeared in the Napier District Court before Judge Geoff Rea yesterday morning after pleading not guilty to five counts of stupefying and eight of indecent assault.

Lim's defence counsel, Harry Waalkens, QC, said Lim "categorically denies" the allegations.

Lim is alleged to have administered the sedative drug Midazolam on four male patients to render them unable to resist his sexual advances while he was working as a GP at The Doctors clinic in Hastings.

Crown prosecutor Steve Manning told the court yesterday that each of the four men, aged between 18 and 30, attended the clinic to be treated for minor ailments and woke up from the sedation to find their trousers undone, pulled down or removed entirely.

The offending is alleged to have occurred in a darkened surgical room, treatment and toilet cubicles while Lim was working the local practice between January and September in 2014.

"His true intention was not a medical one but rather so he could take advantage of the effects of the sedation on his patients," Mr Manning said.

In his opening address Mr Waalkens said it was likely the patients knew Lim was "overtly gay" and that this 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."

Mr Waalkens said one of the side effects of Midazolam was hallucination where patients feel, hear and see things that don't occur.

However when the prosecution called its first witness, emergency medicine expert Dr Craig Ellis, the court heard Dr Ellis had administered the drug hundreds of times and never knowingly had a patient have hallucinations of a sexual nature.

Dr Ellis, who oversaw Lim for more than three years as a senior special emergency physician at the Hawke's Bay Hospital, said Midazolam was "used extensively" in the emergency department for moderately painful procedures to relax patients.

He said the emergency department followed protocol that specified at least two people had to be present at all times during procedures for the safety of both the patient and the doctor.

"We have an absolute rule of a minimum of two people being present. We would usually have three people be present if that's logistically possible."

The Crown allege Lim repeatedly tried to rid the treatment rooms of medical staff and family members so he was alone with the patients while they were in a sedative state.

When put to him by Mr Waalkens, Dr Ellis said it was "bizarre" that The Doctors followed a protocol of having two doctors on-site and not necessarily in attendance of a procedure. The court heard Lim was one of the contributors to this particular document.

Mr Manning said three of the four victims, all of whom were Maori or Pasifika, were not native English speakers which made them "vulnerable to the very attentions that Dr Lim had for them."

He said the Crown's case would put to the jury the "inherent unlikelihood" that four men completely unknown to each other would each come forward to testify to similar experiences in the same practice with the same doctor.

The Crown's case will resume this morning and the trial is set down to continue into next week.