Outlining the case for the tribunal this morning, Dr Jonathon Coates, of the Professional Conduct Committee, said while the sexual relationship was consensual, there was a “blurring of boundaries” between the doctor’s personal life and his professional life.
He’s alleged to have had sex with her at his workplace and later videoed her “submitting” to him.
He’s also alleged to have had her sign a contract about their sex life while at his workplace, provided health services to the woman at the same time that he was in a sexual relationship with her, and accessed lab results without authority or justification in 2018.
Coates submitted that the doctor’s actions warranted a finding of professional misconduct and that his negligence required sanction.
‘I remember having sex on the leather couch’
Giving evidence today, Ms G said after meeting at the doctor’s workplace in 2018, they walked to a pub and had a few drinks.
She said they talked about being safe “from an STI perspective”.
“We discussed that this was something that we were both careful about as we had both been in these relationships before.”
She mentioned she’d had an STI test recently, and the doctor asked to see it, so she took a screenshot and “might” have sent it to him.
“I definitely never gave [doctor] permission either the first time or any time at all to look at any of my test results himself,” she said.
The woman said she met the doctor at his premises on three or four occasions, once when they had sex on a couch in his office and another time when he carried out an examination and took a swab from her.
Coates put to her that the doctor refuted any sexual interactions happening at his workplace, but she was adamant.
“I remember having sex on the leather couch,” before sharing some sexually explicit details, which helped remind her of the incident.
On a third occasion at his office, the woman claimed that the doctor wanted to video her “submitting to him”.
That involved her “getting seated on my knees with my palms up”.
“[Doctor] filmed me in this position in his office,” she said.
She also performed a sex act on the doctor in his office as he sat at his desk, which he also denied.
“How can you be sure that happened in the [premise]?” Dr Coates asked.
“Because I was the one that did it,” she replied.
The pair also had sex at an Airbnb, and he also filmed himself “tying me up and tying various knots”.
“He wore a mask so his face was not visible,” she said.
The pair regularly messaged each other, and she also sent him videos, some sexual, of herself.
However, while she agreed to be filmed, she did not consent to him showing other people, she said.
“[Doctor] knew that I didn’t want my husband or anyone else to find out.”
As for the swab, the woman said she mentioned she might have a vaginal “imbalance” or thrush, to which she claimed the doctor said something like, “I can help you with that” and “let’s see what’s going on”.
The woman wasn’t keen for him to test her and felt pressured, but ultimately agreed.
“I felt I had to let him because he was being persistent.”
In the end, the woman said their relationship was “short-lived” because he became “obsessive and extremely possessive”.
It resulted in him emailing her, “apologising unreservedly” for his “antics” days earlier at an event when he was “drunk, upset or angry”.
“I had no right to show [another woman] that video, and I can promise that it will never happen again,” he said.
When asked by Coates how drunk he was, the woman said, “Yep, he was drunk, quite drunk, and then it got worse as the night went on”.
She said that night he “flipped out, and lost his mind” because she didn’t go to an event.
The next morning, she got a message from an associate who said the doctor had shown her a sexual video with her in it.
“I was concerned that [doctor] is going around telling people about our relationship and showing messages about myself to other people.”
‘You just want to destroy him’
The doctor’s counsel, Harry Waalkens, put to her that she had asked the doctor to take the swab as she was worried that if she got her own GP to do it, he might think “that you had been elsewhere”.
“No, I trust my doctor. I don’t think he would share my information with my husband, it’s confidential.”
He put to her that she “had it in” for the doctor and that she wanted to “destroy” him.
“For what reason?” she replied. “I don’t want to destroy anybody.”
Waalkens asked why she wasn’t willing to accept that the doctor was simply “wanting to help” by doing the swab for her.
“I just wanted him to leave me alone,” she said.
Waalkens asked, “What on earth” she wanted out of the relationship.
The woman said her marriage “wasn’t very healthy”, and she wanted “something that was not mundane in my normal day to day life”.
He also put to her that her relationship with the doctor “was entirely a personal one”.
“You didn’t, at any time, regard him as your doctor,” he asked.
“No.”
“Is it true to say that when you first met up with [doctor], you didn’t know he was a doctor?” he asked.
“No [I didn’t],” the woman replied.
However, in re-examination by Dr Coates, she confirmed that she knew he was a doctor when he took a swab from her and prescribed antibiotics.
The hearing continues.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 10 years and has been a journalist for 21.
