DOCTORS' IMPROPRIETY.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 October 1920, Page 7

DOCTORS' IMPROPRIETY.

; BOTH STRUCK OFF lU2UISTER. , By Tolejrapli.—l'ress Association. ! Wellington, Oct. 27. j Tiie Full Court has delivered judgment in tlie case in which application was made to have the names of Drs. Mackenzie and Claridge struck olf the medical register. The Court ordered that both names • be struck off, and food the term after ! which application for registration may ! be made at three years in the case of Dr. Mackenzie ami two years in the case of Dr. Claridge. The judges, after lengthily traversing the evidence, remark that there seemed', : to have been some personal lieu of | Mackenzie to Mattress which was not i explained. Mackenzie and Claridge : admittedly took a willing and active ' part in a carefully derived plan to ab- • duct tho girl, which plan they carried < out, delivering her to $, man whom they kne'.v to be her seducer and who could do nothing for her beyond making her his mistress. The court considered that the evidence negatived the suggestions by Mackenzie and Claridge that tha 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." A fantastic defence completely failed. Both 'Mackenzie ami Claridge were guilty of grave impropriety in conspiring with Nattrass to get the girl from the private hospital. Claridge's offence was not quite so serious as 'Mackenzie's, but he had offended in another direction subsequently by trying to deceive the Medical Board" as to his part in the transaction. Claridge assured the board that he went to the hospital only as an onlooker, but in t fact he actually brought the girl out j M the hospital, thereby colluding with Mackenzie to the full extent to which that practitioner was blameable.