Toilet camera doctor named
Cardiologist Sam Wilson was the doctor who secretly filmed women in a toilet at Nelson Hospital.
The High Court yesterday rejected Wilson’s continued bid for name suppression over the secret filming of colleagues at the hospital and two visitors to his home between 2012 and 2014.
Wilson, through his lawyers, issued a public apology for the pain and distress that his ‘‘selfish and foolish’’ actions had caused.
The surgeon resigned from the hospital after being charged in 2015, and is no longer working as a medical practitioner. He is also being investigated by the Medical Council and is likely to face disciplinary action.
Wilson, 44, filmed nine women using a miniature recording device set up in a hospital changing room and toilet. On another occasion he used the device to film up a colleague’s skirt when he was sitting next to her. He also filmed two women visitors using a toilet at his home.
The offending came to light by chance when he lost his tablet computer and police found the recordings while trying to trace the owner. Wilson took appeals to the High Court and Court of Appeal over the admissibility of evidence. In January this year, he admitted eight charges of making an intimate visual recording and was sentenced to seven months’ home detention. His bid for continued name suppression was declined, but he appealed to the High Court.
Justice David Collins yesterday dismissed the appeal, saying Wilson had failed to show that publishing his name would risk identifying the victims, or that publication would cause him and his family extreme hardship.
The judge said eight of Wilson’s victims opposed his continued name suppression. Two of the victims did not oppose suppression.
Justice Collins said psychiatric reports showed that while there were reasons for concern about Wilson’s fragile mental health, the evidence fell well short of showing he intended to endanger himself if his name was published.