Patient describes allegations

A young man with a dislocated finger who saw Dr David Lim was brought to tears as he described the doctor allegedly putting his hand down his pants as he lay under sedation.

Hastings doctor David Kang Huat Lim, 41, is on trial by jury before Judge Geoff Rea in Napier District Court. He faces 13 charges: five of stupefying and eight of indecent assault.

The Crown says Lim sedated four men, aged between 18 and 30, so he could sexually assault them.

Crown prosecutor Steve Manning said the doctor gave the men the sedative Midazolam for minor injuries that did not require sedation.

Lim told the patients’ family members and nurses that he needed to treat them alone.

Lim was a GP at The Doctors clinic in Hastings, until police charged him in late 2015. The alleged offending occurred between January and September 2014.

The man, who was 18 at the time, went to the clinic in September 2014 after suffering the injury at school.

He said Lim administered two doses of the sedative Midazolam through his nose. The man removed his jersey and shirt, leaving his singlet on. He was also wearing underwear and shorts beneath his school trousers.

He said the drug made him felt like he was dreaming. When he came to he was not wearing his trousers and had a towel wrapped around his waist.

When he asked Lim where his trousers were Lim indicated they were folded on a chair.

The man said he was ‘‘just thinking why are they off?’’, but he did not ask Lim.

By that stage, his finger was back in place. He was guided to another room where he remained with Lim. He still felt drowsy and was put on a bed.

‘‘I can remember lying on the bed, and while I was lying there I felt his hand going down my pants ... it went down towards my penis. He kind of played with it ... my testicles,’’ he said.

He told the court he saw and felt Lim touching his penis, but he was still feeling like it was a dream.

‘‘But it definitely wasn’t,’’ he told the court.

‘‘Everyone trusts a doctor. You don’t really expect them to do that,’’ he said.

He did not tell anyone about what happened but the following day his mother said she had heard him shouting out ‘‘you better not be playing with my balls’’. He did not remember saying that.

The man and his mother later spoke to the clinic managers and later still spoke to police.

On Monday, the jury heard from senior emergency physician Craig Ellis, who said Lim had broken guidelines by being alone with his patients when the drug was administered.

Ellis said hallucinations due to Midazolam were highly uncommon and while it was not impossible, it would be ‘‘vanishingly rare’’ for four people to have experienced them in such a short space of time.

The trial is expected to run into next week.