Geiringer in witness-box as defence case opens

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34146, 6 May 1976, Page 2

Geiringer in witness-box as defence case opens

IN Z. Press Association/ WELLINGTON, May 5. Nine doctors or specialists would be called by the defence on behalf of Erich Geiringer, the Supreme Court in Wellington was told today.

Geiringer, aged 59, a medical practitioner. is charged with raping a 20-year-old woman at Wellington on or about January 16. When evidence for the Crown ended today, Mr M. A. Bungay, senior defence counsel, applied for the indictment to be quashed under section 347 of the Crimes Act. Told by Mr Justice Beattie that the defence, as he understood it, wag that no intercourse took place, Mr Bungay said: “That is the defence, but it is still incumbent on the Crown to show there was a rape before I raise that.” Referring to allegations by the complainant, Mr Bungay said that under no circumstances could a licking of the breast be consistent with a medical examination.

From that point the complainant must have been aware that something unusual was happening or about to happen. There was an alleged licking of what she described as the private parts.

“The defence is that this did not occur: that there was no intercourse,” Mr Bungay said, “But even accepting, without any criticism at this stage, the evidence of the complainant, it does not amount to rape.” His Honour said the application would be refused. He would give his reasons in writing later if necessary. “NO INTERCOURSE” Opening the case for the defence, Mr T. Castle said the defence was that intercourse did not take place. The defence was not content to conduct just a searching cross-examination. Numerous witnesses, including nine doctors or specialists, would be called to give evidence on many varied matters.

“Reference has already been made to psychiatric records pertaining to the complainant in this case and other medical records after consultations with other doctors of this complainant,” Mr Castle said. Evidence would be given bv several witnesses in reference to matters the jury might well think were much more significant than mere formalities. BORN IN VIENNA

In evidence, Geiringer said he was born in Vienna in 1917, and completed his schooling there. He studied biology for one year at the University of Vienna and the next year studied medicine. In April of that year there was an upheaval in Austria, and in May he left the country. He went to Belgium and stayed there for six months awaiting permission to go to Britain. Towards the end of that year he went to Britain. In Belgium he vent as an unattached medical student to the local hospital and was allowed to take part in clinical training. He arrived in Britain in September, 1938. He tried to re-enter a medical course, but at first this was not possible because of a shortage of places and difficulty for foreigners to gain admittance. He studied biology at Birmingham University until France fell to the Germans. INTERNED AS ALIEN He was then interned by the British Government as an enanv alien and released at the end of 1941 after a security clearance.

He then became a bio’ogy teacher at a school in Kent for two years. While teaching he took a pre-mediea! course at London University as an external student. After passing he ws ac-

cepted at the School of Royal Colleges at Edinburgh. In 1947 he graduated as bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery. He continued with his post-graduate study and obtained a university scholarship at Edinburgh soon after qualifying. This enabled him to start research work, and he obtained a doctorate of medicine at the University of London in 1949. He became a naturalised British subject in 1949. RESEARCH WORK Between then and in 1951 he continued at Edinburgh University as a research worker. From 1951 to 1954 he was a research pathologist at Glasgow Royal Hospital for sick children. He obtained a doctorate of the Edinburgh University in 1954.

During this period he had published many scientific papers. He was elected a member of the Pathological Society of Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland in 1952. In 1955 he received a Ciba foundation award. At the Sorbonne he studied leukaemia. Soon after this he was awarded' a Fulbright scholarship to go to Boston to study at a hospital of the Harvard Medical School and do research.

He completed the scholarship in 1956. During this period he published several medical and scientific papers. In 1959 he was elected to the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine. In 1971 only two doctors in New Zealand had been so elected.

Geiringer said that after finishing his education in America he obtained employmen as a medical registrar to the genetological unit at London Hospital. He took this step because his mother had been admitted to hosptial in London, and he wanted a job there to be able to look after her. OTAGO POSTS

When his mother died in 1958 he applied for the position of senior research medical officer at the University of Otago Medical School, specialising in such things as enzymes and hormones.

He arrived in New Zealand in 1959, and while in, Dunedin published scientific papers and instituted several symposia, the subject of the first one being masturbation. In 1961, he spent six months working as a locum in Edinburgh and in the Shetland Islands.

When he returned to New Zealand he set up a general practice in Petone. WIFE A DOCTOR Geiringer said he was married in 1939. There were no children of that marriage. He later filed for divorce, and married his present wife in 1964. There were three children, aged eight, seven, and four, of the marriage. His wife graduated as a doctor in 1962, and joined him in his practice in 1964. The main surgery was moved from Petone to Kelburo in 1970. For two or three years they had a surgery in their house. “Shortly after I started practice in the Wellington area, our practice acquired a rather sudden and very marked bias to what you might loosely call gynaecology,” he said. During the last seven years he had done a minimum of 12,000 gynaecological examinations. SURGICAL GLOVE

Asked by Mr Bungay if he wore a surgical glove to make a vaginal examination, Geiringer said it depended on the type of examination. Tn a deep examination he always wore a surgical glove, but not always in a superficial examination.

Whether it was a deep surgical examination dr a superficial one depended on the

nature of the complaint, he said.

Asked by Mr Bungay if he put anything on a surgical glove when he wore one, Geiringer said that if it was a deep examination invariably a lubricant was used. Asked by Mr Bungay if the vagina was opened by sexual arousal, Geiringer said that was the most natural way of opening it. Mr Bungay: It could be opened, of course, by the insertion of an instrument? — Yes, by force. There were other ways of opening it than by sexual arousal but they had special methods if they were to be used, he said. EFFECT OF BATH Geiringer was asked whether, if there was seminal fluid in the vagina and some hours later the woman had a bath, he would expect the fluid to be flushed out of the vagina. “In most women not unless she was to give herself a high douche or forcefully draw in water and push it cut as some of them can do. But if she was sitting in the bath washing herself a single pool would remain,” he said. Geiringer said surgical instruments were sometimes used in vaginal examinations.

The instrument most commonly used was a vaginal speculum, of which there were different shapes and sizes.

RECORD OF PATIENTS Geiringer said a record was kept by his receptionist of patients seen. Referred by Mr Bungay to a record of January 16, Geiringer said it indicated the complainant had an appointment to see him at 1 o’clock. A second record was kept by his receptionist of the order in which the patients were seen. This indicated that the complainant and her son were the fifteenth and sixteenth patients seen by him that day. Geiringer said that vaccines were kept in the refrigerator at his surgery, not in his examination room. Vaccines were never kept in his office. Asked by Mr Bungay what the procedure would be if a child needed that vaccination and was brought to him, Geiringer said there would be two possible procedures. One would be to “buzz the nurse. She would answer the telephone and he would ask her to bring in the vaccine. The other would be to take the mother and child to the other end of the surgery and pass them to the nurse, asking her to vaccinate the child. , Geiringer said a door leading from the waiting-room to the hallway into the consulting room was not closed except by accident when somebody removed the stool.

Asked by Mr Bungay why the door was not closed, Geiringer said: “For a number of reasons, the first being to make sure that such allegations that have been made against me, and which, of course, every doctor fears throughout his professional life, could not be made easily and be believed.” The second reason was that through this door, and on the right before coming to his consulting room, was a washroom and lavatory which were used by patients, their children, and the nurse. Geiringer said that the nurse on duty on January 16, the day of the alleged incident, “had been with us for only a few weeks, and was in and out fairly constantly."

He said he recalled policemen coming to see him on January 30. It was his first indication that a complaint of rape had been made against him. On the evening of January 16 a young man went to his

house with two other young men.

The man hit him and kicked him a few times. While this was happening he told his wife to telephone the police, and she did. The man had said, “That’s for rooting «ny missus," Geiringer said. "He said, ‘What did you do at your practice today?’, and those were the only words he spoke within my hearing.”

Geiringer said he was interviewed by the police as a result of his wife’s telephoning them. He told the police he would check the records for that day, and if he came up with something definite he would contact them.

With his wife and receptionist he went through the list of patients he had seen. He could find nothing in the list to explain the assault. Geiringer said his records indicated that on January 16 the complainant told him she had a dry vagina. Asked by Mr Bungay if when a woman complained of a dry vagina this could be attributed to some emotional problem, Geiringer said: “I think it is almost invariably attributed to an emotional problem, using the term in its widest sense. I would prefer, perhaps, to say to a psychological state.” Geiringer said he made a vulval examination, not a vaginal examination of the complainant.

He had had a pathologist’s report which said there was either an infection or infestation of the vulva.

Mr Bungay: If one’s mouth came into contact with the bacteria, what could be the possible consequence to the owner of the mouth?

Geiringer: You could be introducing two of the most disease-producing organisms into your mouth and from there into your respiratory tract, nose, throat. Mr Bungay: Could it be dangerous? — Yes.

Geiringer said he had the report before he examined the complainant. This was one of the reasons he examined her.

Mr Bungay: Did you lick her private parts? — No. Geiringer said he did not have intercourse with the complainant, or undo his trousers at any stage, nor lick her breast. SECOND ALLEGATION Earlier, a woman witness whose name was suppressed, gave evidence. She said that about eight years ago, when she was 19, she had been examined by Geiringer in his surgery. She alleged that Geiringer touched her private parts while she was on the examination bed.

She was told to roll on to her side and to face the wall.

When in that position she was aware Geiringer was inside her. She was rather scared, but did not say or do anything. She was nonplussed and could not think clearly.

At no stage did she see what was inserted into her vagina. She did not tell anybody about it, but had come forward when the present proceedings began. Mr Bungay: You went back to see him some nine months after you say he raped you? — That is correct; I saw him once and he referred me to another doctor. Mr Bungay: The Court issued a bench warrant for your apprehension as an absconding witness on Monday? — Yes.

You were taken into custody? — Yes.

Prayer suggestion.— A suggestion that Friday, May 21, should be a day of prayer in New Zealand for a fair and just settlement to the Rhodesia problem has been made by Mr S. S. Green, of Dargaville, a former chairman of the New Zealand Rhodesian Society.—(P-A.)