‘I shouted in crowded hall after assault by doctor’

THE alleged victim of a retired surgeon who denies groping teenage boys has told a trial he called the doctor a ‘dirty b ***** d’ in a crowded hospital hallway.

Michael Shine, 85, denies eight charges of indecently assaulting patients at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital and at his private clinic, both in Drogheda, Co. Louth, on dates between 1964 and 1991.

Yesterday, a fifth complainant told the jury he had a broken ankle in his right foot in 1990, at the age of 15.

Attending Mr Shine’s fracture clinic while his foot was in a plaster cast, he said he was surprised when Dr Shine called him into his office ahead of other patients. He said the doctor told him to remove his trousers and examined his ankle. The witness said the doctor then moved his hand toward the his groin and groped him. Mr Shine told him he was looking for blood clots, he told the court.

He said when the examination ended he returned to crowded hallway and shouted: ‘That dirty b ***** d is after touching me’.

The complainant’s mother testified that she was embarrassed by her son’s words and gave out to him.

Hugh Hartnett SC, defending, put it to the complainant that there were no hospital records showing his attendance at the hospital in 1990 or 1991. The complainant told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court he’d attended Dr Shine for surgery on his left testicle in 1988, and would have seen him post-surgery for a check-up.

Mr Shine, of Dublin 4, is accused of committing indecent assaults at the hospital between 1964 and 1965, 1970 and 1972, 1975 and 1976 and on an unknown date between 1988 and 1991. He’s accused of indecently assaulting a male twice in a clinic on unknown dates in 1973 and 1974, and in 1975. The trial continues.

Mother ‘was embarrassed’