Doctor To Be Tried On Abortion Charge

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31621, 6 March 1968, Page 28

Doctor To Be Tried On Abortion Charge

(New Zealand Press Association)

HASTINGS, March 5.

Arthur George Bell, a Waipukurau doctor facing a charge of using an instrument on a 20-year-old woman with intent to procure an abortion, pleaded not guilty at the close of a Lower Court hearing in Hastings today and was committed to the present session of the Supreme Court for trial.

Detective R. A. McCrory prosecuted and Mr H. W. Dowling appeared for the defence at the hearing, which was before Mr W. K. L. Dougall, S.M.

The first witness, a 20-year-old woman whose name was suppressed, said she had been employed as a land girl at Hawkestone Station, Patoka, and became pregnant after association with Neil Alexander, her employer, and another man, Noel Freemantle. Her association with Freemantle stopped, but not with Alexander.

She refused to go to the Salvation Army home to have the baby. She later had an abortion, she said. She was taken to Waipukurau and was told an abortion was to be arranged which would cost $4OO. At Hotel

She told Alexander that if he did not find the money she would tell his wife. The witness said Alexander later booked her in a hotel in Waipawa.

She said that she met Ashton Beattie who said he had made arrangements for an abortion by a capable doctor. She said that Beattie took her in a roundabout way to the doctor’s house. The door of the house was opened by a middle-aged man who took her into the lounge. At the request of Mr McCory she pointed out Bell in the court. Tall Table Bell asked her if she wanted to go through with the operation, and she said “yes.” She was examined in the bedroom and was asked how long she had been pregnant and she said three to four months. The girl then said that an abortion had taken place on a tall table in the kitchen and gave details. She thought it had taken about half an hour. The doctor said she would lose the baby in about a week. She lost the baby a few days later. She saw Bell a second time when she developed a high temperature. Beattie took her and stopped the car outside the hospital. The doctor came to her and gave her some pills. She said that she never handled any of the money paid by Alexander. No Record She told Mr Dowling that the table she was laid on in the kitchen was only slightly longer than herself. Mr Dowling: Evidence will be given that the table is only 2Jft square and you said you were on it half

an hour. I put it to you that you were on the table a very short time.—lt seemed longer to me.

This afternoon, Jack Selwyn Knobloch, managing secretary of the Waipawa Hospital Board said Bell was not entitled to engage in private practice. He had found no record of the girl involved being a patient at the hospital. To Mr Dowling Mr Knobloch said that for about 25 years Bell had been visiting surgeon to the board. Rex Burkin Hudson, licensee of the Commercial Hotel, Waipawa, said a woman had been booked into the hotel, from October 21 to 23, 1966. Abortion Instruments He saw the woman at the Supreme Court, Napier on Monday. He said that Ashton Beattie had paid the hotel

bill. Edgar Herman Clark, a medical practitioner and the Hastings police surgeon, gave evidence of inspecting instruments normally used for therapeutic abortions. To Mr Dowling he agreed that it was most unusual for

a doctor of many years standing to have the instruments in his possession. Detective Sergeant Dennis

Arthur Stonehouse, of Hastings, said that on December 20, 1967, he went to Waipukarau with Detective Sergeant Dawson to Bell’s home. He told Bell they were making inquiries into an allegation that a girl had been taken to the home by Ashton Beattie for an illegal operation. The doctor said he did not know the girl and that he did not treat girls at his house. Two Photographs “I told him we had reason to believe he had performed an illegal operation at his home,” said the sergeant. The doctor was then charged and arrested. When given a formal warning he replied: “I am not an abortionist.”

The sergeant said he showed the doctor two photographs. of the girl but he repeated' he did not know her. A search was made of the home and he took possession of surgical instruments and other articles, said Detective Sergeant Stonehouse.