FED: High Court dismisses GP's appeal against underage sex

AAP General News (Australia)
12-12-2007
FED: High Court dismisses GP's appeal against underage sex

CANBERRA, Dec 12 AAP - A doctor convicted of having sex with an underage girl he thought
to be 17 years old has had his appeal dismissed by the High Court.

The general practitioner - identified only as as WGC - is awaiting sentence by the
South Australian District Court after a jury found him guilty last year of two counts
of having sexual intercourse with a girl aged between 12 and 17.

The offences took place between January 31 and February 28, 1986 around Renmark, South
Australia, when the girl was 13.

At his trial, WGC claimed the offences arose from a single sexual encounter on a houseboat
when the girl - a daughter of family friends - was 16 years old.

WGC, 58, believed at the time the girl was 17 because she had finished school, her
friend was 20 and he thought the girl was two or three years younger.

He also claimed to be aware a friend of his had sex with the girl and he believed the
other man would not have done so if she were under age.

As a result WGC relied on a defence, under the Criminal Consolidation Act, that he
believed on reasonable grounds that the girl was 17.

The trial heard that in December 1986 when the girl was 14 she consulted WGC professionally
for a pap smear. Her date of birth was recorded in his clinical notes.

WGC appealed the convictions on the basis that the trial judge and later the SA Court
of Criminal Appeal erred in failing to treat the date of the offences as material.

He claimed the verdicts were uncertain or void because the jury's reasoning may have
taken different paths depending on whether they accepted the offences took place in either
1986 - when the girl was 13 - or in 1989 - when the girl was 16.

The High Court, in a split 3-2 decision today, dismissed the appeal saying the date
was not material and all the prosecution was required to prove was that the girl was aged
somewhere between 12 and 17.

The majority said the sexual intercourse was criminal whether it occurred in 1986 or 1989.

AAP rl/jt/jlw

KEYWORD: WGC

2007 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.