Patient recalls doctor’s hand down his pants

A man told a court yesterday that he felt a doctor’s hand go down his pants when he went to a clinic for a dislocated finger.

The man was giving evidence in the trial of a doctor accused of stupefying and sexually assaulting his patients.

David Kang Huat Lim, 41, is standing trial after pleading not guilty to five charges of stupefying and eight of indecent assault.

Crown prosecutor Steve Manning told the Napier District Court that Lim administered the sedative drug Midazolam on four male patients before sexually assaulting them while he was working as a GP at The Doctors clinic in Hastings in 2014.

The man, who was 18 at the time of the incident, was seen by Lim after injuring himself at school.

He said he was administered Midazolam twice during his visit, Lim having failed to fix the dislocation after the first dose.

He described feeling drunk after the second dose and said when he came to his pants had been removed.

It was at this point that The Doctors practice nurse Anna McKinley said she distinctly heard the man cry out “Why are you touching my balls?”

She said she immediately pulled the curtain back to see what was going on.

“I noticed a stunned look on Dr Lim’s face. I can equate it to a child being caught with his hand in a cookie jar.

“I just couldn’t believe that this was happening.”

The man said he was then moved by Lim to an enclosed, darkened room to “sleep”.

“I can remember . . . while I was lying there I felt his hand go down my pants.”

He said although it felt like a dream he was “100 per cent” sure Lim had handled his private parts.

Lim’s defence counsel, Harry Waalkens, QC, earlier said Lim “categorically denies” the allegations and that Lim being “overtly gay” created a situation “ripe for misunderstanding”.

The court heard from emergency medicine expert Dr Craig Ellis yesterday who testified Midazolam was “used extensively” in the emergency department at Hawke’s Bay Hospital. The trial is set to continue into next week.