Man Unfit In Court; Case Stood Down

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32265, 7 April 1970, Page 26

Man Unfit In Court; Case Stood Down

(New Zealand Press Association/ DUNEDIN, April 6. A man about to be sentenced on a series of charges, including posing as a doctor in the Otautau district, had to be assisted from the dock of the Magistrate’s Court in Dunedin today and given medical attention.

The defendant, Robert James Millar, aged 30, a motor mechanic, was shaking violently and appeared on the point of collapse when assisted from the dock. A doctor found him unfit to appear in court.

Mr J. D. Murray, S.M., remanded Millar until Wednesday under the Criminal Justice Amendment Act. ordering him to be removed to Cherry ' Farm Hospital. The Magistrate said that a , decision would be made on Wednesday on what further steps should be taken. Earlier in the day Millar’s counsel, Mr J. R. Miller said: . “This man has lived out fantasies which he has dreamed up in his own imagination.” Admissions Made Millar admitted that between February 9 and 23, at Otautau he held himself out to be a medical practitioner: that between February 7 and 22, at Otautau, with intent to defraud he obtain from Lindsay Gerald Moffatt $164.28 by means of certain false pretences; that on February 23. at Dunedin, while not being licensed under the Narcotics Act, he had a narcotic, pethedine, in his possession; that on February 17, at Otautau, he sold a prescription poison, valium; and that on May 5, last year, at Christchurch, being already married, he went through a form of marriage

and thereby committed bigamy.

Detective Sergeant K. G. Schwass said that Millar was married in Queensland, on February 2, 1963, and lived with his wife and one child there until the middle of 1965 when he left home to go to the Northern Territory on business. His wife did not see him again and subsequently reported him missing.

Christchurch Marriage Located by police in Dunedin on February 23, this year, Millar produced a medical practitioner's certificate, Mr Schwass said.

Inquiries showed that Millar married a young woman in Christchurch in May, 1969. He told her that he was a medical practitioner although he was working as a foreman

mechanic for a Christchurch firm.

Mr Schwass said that the woman whom Millar married in Christchurch did not know that he was not a medical practitioner or that he was already married.

Millar told the police he left his first wife because he “could not put up with her nagging any more," said Mr Schwass. Inquiries showed that Millar had attended a public meeting in Otautau in January this year, after which he said he was interested in taking the position of medical practitioner for Nightcaps. Drug Offences

The doctor at Otautau, Dr Moffatt, agreed to employ Millar, who was then known by the name of Knight, and to pay him $llO a week. The cheque involved in the false pretences charge was for the amount of two weeks wages, less tax.

The drug offences related to prescriptions issued for 84 persons while Millar was posing as a doctor; and the charge involving possession of a narcotic related to Millar's provision of equipment for himself.