SUPREME COURT Doctor Found Guilty On Abortion Charge

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30822, 6 August 1965, Page 7

SUPREME COURT Doctor Found Guilty On Abortion Charge

A Christchurch doctor, Norman Francis Boag, aged 72, was found guilty in the Supreme Court yesterday on a charge of unlawfully using an instrument with intent to procure a miscarriage on June 24. The jury of eight men and four women took 45 minutes to reach its verdict.

Mr Justice Wilson remanded Boag in custody to August 10 for sentence. Boag pleaded not guilty. He was represented by Mr B. McClelland. with him Mr J. H. Gebbie. The Crown Prosecutor (Mr C. M. Roper) said that evidence would be given that in February the girl involved found she was pregnant to her fiance. For mainly financial reasons, they were unable to marry, and sought to get rid of the child. The accused was visited on June 18 and said he could do nothing. On a second visit he agreed to help to get rid of the child. He asked a fee of £lOO, but a price of £75 was finally agreed on. An appointment was made for June 24. On that day Boag used a catheter on the girl. The next day her fiance became worried about her condition and called the police and the ambulance. At the Princess Margaret Hospital the girl was found to have part of a catheter still in her uterus. Later she had a miscarriage. Names Suppressed The names of the girl and her employer were sup-I pressed. Evidence along these lines j was given by the girl, Doug-i las Gavin Thomson, a house i surgeon at the hospital, and the girl's fiance. In cross-examination the girl said that Boag gave her a prescription to guard against infection. He told her a tube was still inside her. The prescription was taken to a chemist by her employer, who had later to take her home from work. Before she saw Boag she had been taking pills provided by another man. They had no effect. The man who gave her the pills accompanied her to see the doctor. Fiance’s Evidence The girl’s fiance said that after the visit to Boag the girl was in despair and in pain. There had been an argument with the girl’s mother and another person, and “. . . both of us were assaulted.” The girl was kicked or punched in the stomach by her mother. He called the police and ambulance. ' To Mr McClelland he said he had disapproved of the:' suggestion of an abortion. He 1 had not tried to stop it. Leonard Lawrence Tread- • good, a pathologist, said the capsules prescribed were an antibiotic. The next witness, a garage manager, aged 32, said he had known the girl about 18 months. She had told him she

was pregnant. Later he agreed to help. He saw Boag with the girl. The accused examined the girl and made an appointment for the next day. He said the fee would be about £lOO. Finally £75 was agreed on. The witness said he passed over the money the next day. He had lent it to the girl. He was sent away for 25 minutes. He later took the girl back to her work. Cross-Examination Mr McClelland: You were financing Miss ’s abortion? The witness: It would appear so. I thought there was some sort of treatment. Do you say you did not know what was going to happen?— That’s right. Why did you nearly faint? —I am a very nervous sort of chap, very nervous. I thought there was something wrong. The witness said he had given the girl a bottle of pills that his employer had used for severe headaches. He did not exactly tell the girl they might cause a miscarriage. He told her they might help her. He had heard in a conversation that Boag might be able to help. Search of House I Detective Sergeant James William Wooders gave evidence of having searched . Boag's home. He said that Boag denied aborting the girl. The search revealed a social security return form for the girl. A diary with an appointment at the surgery for the day of the offence was also found. The accused denied that he knew the girl. A search of the city surgery revealed a catheter in sterilised solution. Other catheters were also found. When asked about the sterilised catheter the accused said: “I’m bloody well not going to tell you anything.” The defence called no evidence. To the jury Mr McClelland suggested that the girl and the garage manager were accomplices, and such evidence might be suspect. “Did you believe (the garage manager) when he said he gave the girl pills he had picked up from his boss?” Mr McClelland asked. Why did the girl go to that man? Mr McClelland suggested that the child might have been killed by the pills. Dr. Thomson had said the child was about 16 weeks old; the girl said it was about 20 weeks old. It would have been possible for her to carry the dead child. The girl was kicked or punched in the stomach before she went to the hospital,

and this might have had some bearing on the matter. Why had the accused refused to do anything on the first day, and five days later changed his mind? Was not the garage manager’s part in the affair rather strange? Was he involved in some way? No £75 had been found in the search, Mr McClelland said. Summing-up In his summing-up, his Honour said an offence had been committed, whether the foetus was alive or dead, if the intention was to procure a miscarriage without lawful excuse. Was the catheter used to procure a miscarriage? his Honour asked. “I do not think it is possible to imagine any other purpose.” It was dangerous, he said, to convict on the evidence of an accomplice unless it was corroborated. There was evidence an offence had been committed, he said. As to who committed it, there was the evidence of the prescription on the accused’s notepaper. There was ample evidence to corroborate the evidence given by the girl, his Honour said. Some of the jury might feel that abortion should be made legal, but that was a matter of opinion, and in law it was illegal, his Hono< r said. Abortion was legal only if it was done in good faith to save the mother’s life or to prevent her becoming a mental or physical wreck.