Burnham instructor’s conviction quashed

Press, 5 April 1983, Page 2

Burnham instructor’s conviction quashed

The conviction of a Burnham Military Camp medical instructor on a charge of “disgraceful conduct of an indecent kind” has been quashed by the Courts-Mar-tial Appeal Court. Keven McGowan, formerly a Royal New Zealand Air Force sergeant, had been convicted of the charge at a five-day courtmartial at Bumham a year ago. „i He had originally faced six charges, but was found not guilty on five of them during the hearing. He was fined 1300 on. the sixth Charge. -. ' ‘ In a written decision, Mr Justice Cook, the CourtsMartial Appeal Court president, said that the question of corroboration was undoubtedly of importance in the case. “We are unable to see that there was any evidence which, if accepted by the court-martial, was capable of constituting corroboration of the offence encompassed by the sixth charge,”

said the decision. “This means that the court-mar-tial was led to believe that it was open to accept as corroborative certain evidence which in fact could not be used.”

Mr M. J. Glue appeared for Mr McGowan at both the original court-martial and when the appeal was heard in February. In the judgment, the Appeal Court noted that the other charges in which Mr McGowan had been found not guilty related to inducing a woman trainee to remove her brassiere, Trying to kiss a trainee on three occasions, and asking one to remove her brassiere. A procedure used in the course that the two complainants were attending at Burnham Camp involved the application of simulated moulded plastic wounds to the appropriate part of a person’s body. The incident from which the sixth charge arose allegedly took place when Mr McGowan was giving a woman medical trainee extra tuition.

During the tuition, an imitation femur wound, simulating a broken bone and a ruptured femural artery, was attached to the woman’s right thigh. “By reason of the position on the inner thigh where the artery lies near the surface and a rupture is likely to occur if the leg suffers injury, the moulding must be placed well up the leg if it is fairly to represent, the situation which in fact may well be encountered,” said the judgment “We have the situation, therefore, that there was nothing untoward, at least in the eyes of those responsible for the course at Burnham Camp, in the appellant, at 9.30 p.m., being alone with the complainant and fixing to her bare leg the simulated wound in the manner described. “There was no suggestion that the appellant had made any attempt to interfere with her undergarments, only that the shorts were pushed up as far as they would go in the process of putting the moulding in position.”