DOCTORS STRUCK OFF

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2196, 30 October 1920, Page 3

DOCTORS STRUCK OFF

DECISION OF FULL COURT,

Wellington, October 27,

The Full Court to-day delivered judgment in the ease in which application was made, to have the names of Drs. Mackenzie and Glaridge struck off the medical register. The, Court ordered that both names be struck off, and fixed the term after which application for re-regis-tration may bo made at three years in (ho case of Dr. Mackenzie..and two years in the ease of Dr. Claridge. The Judges, after lengthily traversing the evidence, remarked that there seemed to have been some personal lien by Mackenzie to Nattrass which was not explained. Mackenzie and Claridge admittedly took willing and active parts in a careful devised plan to abduct the girl, which plan they carried out, delivering her to a man whom they knew to lie her seducer, and who could do nothing for her beyond making her his mistress. The Court considered . that the evidence negatived the suggestion by Mackenzie and Claridge , that (he girl’s parents wished an illegal operation to be performed. The Court states that it decided the case of each doctor on his own evidence mainly, “though we are sorry that in a very large measure we cannot regard it as truthfully given.” The fantastic defence had completely failed. Both Mackenzie and Claridge have boon guilty of grave impropriety in conspiring with Naifrass to got the girl from the private, hospital. Chwidge’s offence was not quite so serious as Mackenzie’s, but he had offended in another direction subsequently by trying to der . ceive the Medical Board as to his part in the transaction. Claridge assured the Board that he went to the hospital only as an onlooker, hut in fact lie actually brought the girl out of the hospital, thereby acting in collusion with Maekenzieilo the full extent to which that practitioner was hlameable.