Dr Michael Shine trial continues at the Central Criminal Court

ALLEGED victims of Michael Shine (85) (pictured) have been giving evidence in his trial, which entered its second week on Monday.

Mr Shine, of Wellington Rd. in Dublin 4 is accused of committing indecent assaults at Our Lady of Lourdes hospital on unknown dates between 1964 and 1965, 1970 and 1972, 1975 and 1976 and, finally, on a unknown date between 1988 and 1991.

He is also accused of indecently assaulting a male on two occasions in a clinic in Drogheda on unknown dates in 1973 and 1974 and in 1975.

During his arraignment at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, the former doctor replied ‘I absolutely deny that allegation’ to each of the charges.

Opening the case for the prosecution, Bernard Condon SC said that the six complainants were all teenage boys at the time and that Mr Shine allegedly touched them in the genital areas while treating them for injuries such as cuts to a knee, a broken ankle, an injury to a finger and an injured toe.

The first complainant, now aged 65, testified he was aged 13 when he attended with his mother at the hospital in 1964. He was suffering from a cyst on his chest which he said was quite sore.

In a cubicle a nurse carried out an initial examination before telling them the doctor would be with them. He said that Mr Shine came into the cubicle and his mother left.

He said he didn’t know if she was asked to leave or if she left of her own accord. He said a curtain was pulled and he believes he was just wearing his underpants at this point.

He said the defendant felt his chest and pressed into his stomach. Dr Shine told him ‘it all works together’ before then massaging the boy’s testicles, the witness said.

Hugh Hartnett SC, defending, put it to the witness that there was a campaign, run by a woman called Bernadette Sullivan, against Dr Shine. He said there was a lot of publicity around this campaign including advertisements and talks on local radio asking anybody who had been treated by Dr Shine to come forward to make complaints.

The witness agreed he telephoned a number provided by local radio and later met with the organisation run by Ms Sullivan.

Mr Hartnett submitted that the organisation arranged for the witness to meet with gardaí and to get a solicitor to arrange for actions for damages against the hospital. The witness agreed that a civil claim was pursued. He said in a civil case he received €70,000 from the hospital with no admission of liability. He said his case was settled with the hospital about five years ago and he had never received any compensation from the defendant.

He said he had no financial benefit now or into the future from being in court

The complainant told the jury that at one stage he considered withdrawing his complaint to gardaí. Mr Hartnett put it to him that his reason for considering withdrawing his complaint was that there was no basis for it. The witness said this was wrong.

On the third day of the trial, a second complainant said he was aged around 17 sometime in 1971 when he was injured in a motorbike accident. He was treated at the hospital and attended again as an out patient some time later, to have his wound dressing changed.

He said Dr Shine met him in a treatment cubicle. During the treatment the doctor opened his trousers fly, put his hand down his underpants and started to feel his testicles, he said. ‘I jumped off the couch, I said either back off or f..k off,’ he testified.

Hugh Hartnett SC, defending, told the witness that his client had no memory of seeing him during this time and put it to him that ‘nothing untoward’ had happened.

The witness replied: ‘I waited 46 years and I am telling the truth. That man assaulted me. I’m 100 per cent certain of that.’

A third complainant testified that he was aged 18 in early 1976 when he attended the hospital with injuries from a traffic collision. He was treated for a broken wrist, stitches to the head and a leg and finger injury.

He attended as an outpatient a couple of weeks later and a nurse brought him in to see Dr Shine. ‘ When I was lying on the bed he started feeling me around the top and my stomach. He slipped his hands down and started feeling my testicles and my penis’.

‘I told him there was nothing wrong down there and he said, ‘I have to do this’. It went on for a few minutes,” he said.

The witness said that the accused was watching the door during all this, telling the jury: ‘I knew there was something not right. I didn’t know what to make of him.’

Mr Hartnett put it to this witness that the hospital records from 1976 stated that he was treated by consultant Mr MD Sheehan. He said records of an insurance claim from the time taken against the other driver in the crash stated that the other driver’s insurers had arranged for a medical examination in November.

The letter, addressed to the complainant, stated that: ‘Dr Shine will examine you in consultation with Mr Sheehan’. The witness said he couldn’t remember that and stated that he never met Dr Shine apart from the two times he described.

A fourth complainant told the jury that sometime in 1975 or 1976 he attended at the hospital with an ingrown toenail. He was aged around 15 or 16 at the time.

He met Dr Shine by appointment as well as a female assistant, who he assumed was a nurse. He said he was made to lie prostrate on a bed which he thought was strange.

He said a blanket was put over him and rubber bungee restraints were then strapped across him and the blanket at intervals. He said Dr Shine and the assistant wrapped these cords around him, tying him down to the bed. He said he couldn’t move though he could probably have burst out.

He said he thought it was weird. He said the assistant ‘all of a sudden’ went out of his sight and Dr Shine was sitting on a chair and at chest level to him.

He said the doctor slipped his hand under the blanket and started massaging his testicles. ‘ The whole thing was getting weirder and weirder. It seemed in no way to be a medical examination. How could it be?,’ he testified.

He described a random groping of his penis and testicles. He said he wondered if he should say something but thought he was just a young boy and ‘ who am I to say something?’.

‘At one point he grabbed one testicle and pulled it and I winced. It seemed I startled him and I was never so glad of anything.

‘He pulled his hand back out. I thought thank God. I can still see his face. He never said anything,’ the witness said. He said the doctor then proceeded to cut away the toenail and said nothing about the ‘groping’.

On day four of the trial a fifth complainant told the jury that he was aged around 15 in 1990 with a broken ankle in his right foot. He said a plaster cast was set on the foot and he was given an appointment to return later to have it removed.

He when he returned to Mr Shine’s fracture clinic with his mother the waiting area was filled with people. He said Mr Shine saw him and called him in and he found this unusual as he had just arrived and there were around 80 people already waiting. He said he could hear some people giving out that they had been waiting before he arrived.

He said the doctor told him to remove his trousers and the doctor began examining him at his right ankle. He said the doctor moved his hand up towards is groin and groped his testicles and penis.

Dr Shine told him he was checking for blood clots there that might occur from having plaster of Paris on, he told the court.

He said when the examination ended he went back into crowded hallway outside the room and shouted ‘ that dirty b....d is after touching me’.

The complainant’s mother testified that she was also there and was embarrassed by her son’s words and she gave out to him. She said she knew some people who were in the waiting area.

Hugh Hartnett SC, defending, put it to the complainant that there were no hospital records provided showing his attendance at the hospital in 1990 or 1991.

He said that there is an x-ray record in 1988 in his name which refers to a left foot with no fracture noted. The witness said he never had an injury to his left foot. He told Mr Hartnett that in 1988 he did have surgery on his left testicle and he said he described this in a statement to gardai as surgery to his stomach.

He said that Mr Shine had carried out the procedure in 1988 and in doing so he had to examine his testicle and would have also met him after the surgery to check his testicles were operating normally.

He accepted he had a history of psychiatric care but denied ever experiencing paranoid delusions. He also denied ever telling a counsellor that he was abused twice by the defendant.

The trial continues before Judge Cormac Quinn and a jury of four men and eight women.

‘He said a curtain was pulled and he believes he was just wearing his underpants at this point’