Doctor 'victim' told keep quiet

A woman told a court that a psychiatrist indecently assaulted her in his clinic before telling her to keep quiet because "no one will believe you".

The woman, who is now 50 and wheelchair-bound, told Leeds Crown Court she went to see Dr William Kerr for a psychiatric assessment for abortion when she was 18 in 1969.

But she said the doctor locked her in his treatment room in Harrogate and asked her about her sex life before stripping naked and indecently assaulting her.

The woman is one of 16 former patients of the doctor who claim he either raped or indecently assaulted them at private and NHS hospitals in York, Harrogate and Ripon between 1969 and 1988, when he retired.

She told the court the doctor asked her to take her clothes off because he was going to hypnotise her but she refused. He then asked her to lie down and close her eyes and when she opened them again "he was stood next to me with no clothes on. He had nothing on at all".

"He told me to keep my eyes shut, I couldn't. I tried to get away and as I tried to get away he pushed me back down on the sofa. He was running his hands over my arms and my chest and my legs and telling me to relax. He had his hand on my throat and he was pressing me down."

The woman, who worked as a nurse at the time, said she tried to get out of the building but the main door was locked. She said that the doctor eventually came downstairs, fully clothed, and asked her why she wanted to go.

She said: "He didn't touch me, he just looked at me and I said 'I'm going to tell'. He laughed and said 'Who's going to believe you?"

"I think he referred to the fact that I was just a dirty little girl and he was who he was and then he said 'Believe me, there's no point in telling anybody'."

The woman said that she went to tell the matron at the hospital where she worked what had happened. She told the court: "She said I was a disgusting, ungrateful girl."

The woman did not report what had happened to the police until she saw newspaper articles about Dr Kerr being arrested.

Dr Kerr, of York, is now 75 and suffers from brain damage.

A previous jury found him unfit to plead and the case is a finding of facts trial to determine if he committed the acts alleged.
Yorkshire Evening Post, 29th November 2000

Psychiatrist Placed on Sex Offence Register

Retired York psychiatrist William Kerr was today being placed on the sex offenders' register after a jury decided he indecently assaulted a patient.

But the former Clifton Hospital consultant does not have a criminal conviction and will not serve any punishment - because a previous jury had decided he was unfit to plead through mental impairment.

Instead, to angry exclamations from the public gallery at Leeds Crown Court, Dr Kerr, 75, of Alne, near Easingwold, was given an absolute discharge by Judge Arthur Myerson, QC.

The judge said: "I have little doubt there are those in this court who would feel this is not an adequate order. That is not for them to decide, it's for me."

He said Dr Kerr had not been convicted of a criminal offence and did not present a danger to the public, and he ruled out alternative options such as a hospital order.

However, he said that under the Sexual Offences Act 1997, the doctor, who had "taken advantage of one of his patients for his own sexual gratification", must still go on the register of sex offenders for a period of five years.

The Crown Prosecution Service was today considering whether to take any further action against the doctor over ten allegations of indecent assault, and two of rape, on which the jury could not reach a decision.

The dramatic conclusion to the special 'hearing of fact' into 19 allegations against Dr Kerr - four of rape and 15 of indecent assault on a total of 16 women patients between 1968 and 1988 - came after the jury had spent just over 17 hours considering its verdicts.

Dr Kerr had already been acquitted of two rapes and two indecent assaults last week.

He was cleared of two more indecent assaults yesterday before the jury foreman announced that it had found the 19the allegation, of indecent assault against a Ripon woman, proven.

The woman told the court last week how she had been assaulted by Dr Kerr while being treated for depression after losing her husband.

She said he told her that her problems were all related to her sex life, performed a sex act on her and later wanted her to perform one on him.

The jury indicated yesterday it had no realistic chance of reaching a decision today on any of the remaining allegations and was discharged. The judge told members they would be excused jury service for 15 years after having to deal with such a traumatic case.
York Evening Press, 19th December 2000

PHILLIP DAY COMMENT: The above case, still on the 'active list' of mental health watchdog Citizen's Commission on Human Rights, illustrates the damning ease with which criminal actions continue within psychiatry. In my new book, The Mind Game, I illustrate the numerous cases of abuse which occur each year in this discredited branch of medicine. Victims are often marginalised as 'paranoid' or 'suffering from sexual delusions' and invariably cowed into silence. As part of CTM's ongoing efforts to educate the public worldwide about the abuses of psychiatry and to bring certain practitioners back under the law, we encourage those members of the public who have fallen victim to such attacks to take that difficult step and contact CTM in confidence so that the appropriate steps can be taken by independent investigative authorities to look into the matter further.

Sexual assault and rape are illegal and punishable to the fullest extent of the law. DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT.
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