Anesthetist who assaulted patients loses appeal
TORONTO — A “touchy-feely” anesthesiologist handed a 10-year sentence for sexually assaulting 21 sedated women during surgery has failed to have his conviction overturned.
In a decision Friday, Ontario’s top court ruled that the judge who convicted Dr. George Doodnaught after a 76-day trial was bang on.
“The grounds of appeal advanced track closely the submissions made to, and rejected by, the trial judge,” the Court of Appeal said. “They are the subject of lengthy and detailed reasons which describe the findings of fact essential to proof of guilt and the evidentiary stuff of which those findings were made.”
Doodnaught, who is in his late 60s, was convicted in November 2013 on all counts for assaulting women, who ranged from 25 to 75 years old, while they were semi-conscious at the North York General Hospital.
The defence never argued the women fabricated their complaints or colluded with one another, but at trial and on appeal suggested the complainants may have been hallucinating while under anesthetic. Doodnaught’s lawyers further argued that the assaults, in the confined space of an operating theatre close to others in the surgical team, could not have happened.
Superior Court Justice David McCombs rejected the defence arguments, siding with the prosecution that Doodnaught had the opportunity to commit the assaults and that the women’s accounts were honest and realistic.