Former GAA doctor guilty of misconduct for forging will
A FORMER doctor to the Tyrone Gaelic football team who attempted to forge the will of a woman has been found guilty of professional misconduct by a Medical Council disciplinary inquiry.
Dr James Cassidy, who works as a GP in Dundalk, Co. Louth, was convicted in June 2014 of conspiring with others to falsify the will of Catherine ‘ Kitty’ Haughey who left €1.9million, and of f aking t he sale of property.
A widowed publican in south Armagh, Ms Haughey died childless in 2004 at the age of 81.
Concerns about her will were raised when it emerged it had been changed two weeks before she died.
Dr Cassidy, also known as Séamus, was sentenced in 18 months in prison in 2014, which was suspended for three years.
The GP who has four grown daughters with his wife, had earlier told the inquiry of the extreme shame and embarrassment his actions had brought to his family.
‘My children and wife have had to undergo considerable embarrassment in their own lives as a result of my actions,’ Dr Cassidy said.
Yesterday, while l eaving the inquiry Dr Cassidy threw a punch at a photographer from The Star newspaper, Paul Nicholls. He missed Mr Nicholls and struck his camera.
Mr Nicholls rang the gardaí who
‘I was trapped in this situation’
arrived approximately 45 minutes later to take statements from witnesses.
During the inquiry, when asked how he felt about his participation in the matters relating to his conviction in the North, Dr Cassidy replied: ‘I can only say shame, first of all to my family, [and] to my profession.’
‘It’s not very nice at this stage in your life to accept that you did something hugely irresponsible,’ said Dr Cassidy, who will be turning 64 next week.
The inquiry heard that the matters relating to the forged will took place in 2004. An investigation was conducted i nto t he matters between 2004 and 2010 and Dr Cassidy was then convicted four years later in Newry, Co. Down, in 2014.
He pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy in connection with the €1.9million will, and received a 18-month suspended sentence.
He told the inquiry that in relation to the forgery of the will in 2004, he felt under extreme duress and threat.
He said that a man, who was yesterday referred to as ‘Mr A’ and who was a patient and acquaintance of his, made threats against himself and his family, and that the threats were made within the context of what has happened i n south Armagh.
Dr Cassidy, whose children were in school at the time, said that the threat was real and that any father would have put concerns for his family above concerns for himself.
‘I was trapped in this situation,’ he said. ‘I made what was undoubtedly the wrong choice but that’s the reason why I did that.’
He said you can look back and think about what you could have done differently but in a situation like that, you can’t think clearly because you just focus on the threat to your family. He said he believed that Mr A ‘was not at liberty’ at the present time.
Dr Cassidy told the inquiry that in May 2009, he applied for registration to the Medical Council of Ireland (in the Republic).
However, he admitted that he also failed to tell the Medical Council about a previous conviction in Northern Ireland, which related to a road traffic matter.
Dr Cassidy told the inquiry that in
‘I drank too much, too regularly’
2004 and before that, he did have a problem with alcohol.
‘I drank too much and too regular,’ said Dr Cassidy, who said he now had the problem under con- trol, and had had no lapses. Dr Cassidy said he had operated a private sole practice as a GP for a number of years, and that the vast majority of the patients who visit him are established, regular patients, who have stuck with him throughout all the publicity surrounding his convictions in the North.
He pointed out that there have never been any clinical complaints against him.
He hopes to continue to practice, and asked that he not be suspended from the medical register.
Sanctions will be determined at a later date.