A DOCTOR CHARGED

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 15, 8 April 1927, Page 7

A DOCTOR CHARGED

MOTION FOR DE-REGISTRATION APPLICATION REFUSED ( From. Our Resident Correspondent.) . WELLINGTON, To-day. Dr. George Oscar Jacobsen denied the allegation made against him by the New Zealand Medical Council, which, urging that his name be struck from the register of medical practitioners on the ground of infamous conduct, alleged that he gave a woman the name and address of Mrs. Nevill as a person who might be able to procure abortion. The woman concerned said that she received a scrap of paper with the address on it, but there was nothing on the paper to indicate that it had come from him. She consulted Dr. Jacobsen because she thought he might know of some such woman. DE-REGISTRATION NOT JUSTIFIED His Honour Mr Justice Heed said that the question was one purely of fact. “A medical man is charged with a serious offence,” he said. “In form it is a motion to strike him off the roll of medical practitioners. Striking him off the roll would debar him for life from practice as a medical man. I am quite satisfied that if he were struck off for an offence of this nature he would never be permitted to go on to the register again. In those circumstances I think that the court would not be justified in finding a person guilty of an offence involving such grave results unless the evidence is clear and cogent. NO CORROBORATION ,T I think that the principles which apply to the proving of a criminal charge are equally applicable here. That is, that the onus is upon the council of proving its case and of proving it with all that particularity and certainty -which must be requited in a criminal charge. That proof must not leave any reasonable doubt in the mind at all. The case really resolves itself into the girl’s words as against that of the doctor. I can find no corroboration. There are suspicious circumstances surrounding the case, but these have been answ*ered by reasonable explanations. Outside these suspicious circumstances, there is absolutely no corroboration. Ido not think the court would be justified in exercising its extreme power without seeing that there is some corroboration of the girl’s statement.” RESULTS MAY BE FAR-REACHING Continuing, his Honour said: “The result may be very far-reaching. It may affect the whole, or any of the members of the medical profession. A girl might go to the most respectable and responsible member of the profession in this town and be examined. She might then, getting no hint or suggestion from that doctor, find her way to an abortionist. It is quite possible that on her discovering that she was committing a serious crime the very first thing that suggested itself to her to say was that the doctor had advised her to do it. It is a very small step from saying that in the first instance to coming into the box afterwards and swearing it. “I am satisfied,” concluded his Honour, “that I would not be doing my duty in the matter if I held on uncorroborated evidence like this that the motion has been proved.” The application was accordingly dismissed and costs were granted to the successful party.