HEWER BEFORE COURT

Taranaki Daily News, 3 September 1935, Page 6

HEWER BEFORE COURT

USE OF INSTRUMENT ALLEGED. EVIDENCE IN AUCKLAND CASE. By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. After repeated remands, George Frederick Hewer, aged 49, unregistered medical practitioner, and Phyllis Shorter, aged 31, married, appeared in the Police Court to-day on charges of unlawfully using an instrument or other means on a female on July 23. The first witness for the prosecution was a domestic who said that on receiving a letter from her younger sister, aged 20, she went to Hewer and arranged for an operation to relieve her condition. A fee of £l5 15s was asked, but as she was unable to pay it it was reduced to £lO. Her sister then came to town from the country, where she had been in hospital until five weeks previously suffering from an abscess. She accompanied her sister to Hewer’s rooms, where, she f paid £6 on account. Witness described repeated visits to Hewer with her sister, also a visit to a chemist, from whom Hewer. ordered medicine. She said that her sister had not been treated by anyone else but Hewer. Shorter was employed as a nurse in Hewer’s rooms. The sister of the first witness said she knew the two accused. She described several visits to Hewer’s rooms and the treatment she said she received there. She also obtained medicine, which she said Hewer had ordered. Later she was admitted to hospital, where a certain occurrence took place. Dr. Walter Gilmour, pathologist to the Auckland hospital, said that on July 23 with Mr. Kenneth MacCormick he examined the last witness at the hospital. The examination indicated she was pregnant. There was no sign of injury. Witness had seen the prescription of the medicine the girl had been taking. It would be prescribed by a medical practitioner in a case of pregnancy for one purpose only. An operation combined with the medicine couk. have only one object. After further medical evidence the hearing was adjourned until to-morrow.