BOGUS DOCTOR.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18817, 4 March 1931, Page 7

BOGUS DOCTOR.

CONVICTED OF INDECENT ASSAULT. By Telegraph—Press Association HAMILTON, March 3. Joseph Pollard Tattam, a middleaged man, pleaded not guilty at the Hamilton Supreme Court this afternoon to a charge of indecently assaulting a young woman at Matamata. The Crown Prosecutor said that in October last accused rode into Matamata, calling on Duxfield junior, representing that/ he had been asked to call by a friend of Duxfield’s. He remained with the family for a time, representing that he was a doctor. He persuaded a young lady at the house to allow herself to be examined. It was upon this that the uu ifa e ox indecent assault was based. Asked why she let accused examine her alone in a bedroom, the girl, in evidence, said he was always telling her something was wrong with her. The defence contended that there was no case to go to a jury. His Honour said that if the young woman gave consent to the examination on a false representation that the prisoner was a doctor, consent was not one which the law took cognisance of. He would not hold for a moment that a man who, by reason of false representation that he was a doctor, was able to handle the body of a woman, was not guilty of an indecent act. Indecent assault had application to touching without consent of a part of the body that was sacred to the individual. There was no doubt that the woman consented to the examination. She said the prisoner acted as a gentleman. The Crown held, however, that prisoner obtained the right to examine the woman by false representation.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty.