TRIAL OF DOCTOR

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24095, 3 November 1943, Page 4

TRIAL OF DOCTOR

COUNSEL ADDRESS JURY <P.A.) AUCKLAND, November 2. The trial of George Brownlee Isdale, aged 51, medical practitioner, of Ngaruawahla, on seven charges of unlawfully using an Instrument or other means to procure a miscarriage, was continued before Mr Justice Fair for the sixth day to-day. The Crown Prosecutor, Mr V. R. Meredith, and Mr Aeklns are conducting the prosecution, and Mr G. Skelton and Mr A. H. Skelton appear for the de*e"Another ugly thing has raised its head In this case," said Mr Meredith, continuing his address to the jury, and emphasising the difference between evidence given In the lower court, and in the present trial. 'One witness after another has come to Auckland, and it cannot be coincidence that many of them admit to saying something entirely different from what they had sworn in the Magistrate’s Court" Counsel said no one seemed to know the name of the nurse who accompanied accused on several of his visits to make examinations under an anaesthetic. Apparently this mysterious lady was never introduced to the patients. Finally. Mr Meredith spoke ot the medical evident of the professional practice requiring medical consultations before any legal operation likely to interfere with pregnancy, a course which, it was alleged, accused did not fellow. Counsel’s Address Mr G« Skelton, in his address for the defence, said that no operation had been proved beyond reasonable doubt. Second, none of the operations had been proved to be unlawful. There were gaps in the evidence which the Crown had failed to close to order to prove an operation lawful or otherwise. None of the women who were under an anaesthetic could say there had been any operation. Circumstantial evidence was insufficient to prove an unlawful operation. Counsel contended that certain evidence given by Dr. R. S Graham gave the lie direct to the bogey of wholesale absortion. He warned the jury that it was always dangerous to act upon the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice. A doctor was entitled to charge what he thought his services were worth, and there was no ground for the Crown’s suggestion that Dr Isdale’s fees were unreasonably high. The only motive that the Crown had suggested—greed or gain—could not be sustained, and Dr. Isdale was acting in the most considerate way possible, considering bis duty as a medical practitioner. The police said they had found records of 245 women patients, and had interviewed 34 of them. Why had they not taken up a few of the cases from- the last few months, when memories were fresh? It seemed incredible that they should have taken up cases of nearly f f l years ago. Mr Skelton had not completed his address when the Court adjourned.