Judge and jury visit Killaloe clinic in cancer doctor trial

THE JUDGE and jury in the trial of a doctor accused of obtaining money from cancer patients by deception yesterday visited the premises in Co Clare where he practised as a GP for nearly 25 years.

Paschal Carmody (60), Ballycuggaran, Killaloe, Co Clare, denies 25 charges of obtaining €80,172 from six cancer patients and their families by deception between September 2001 and October 2002.

On the seventh day of the trial at Ennis Circuit Court, the jury of nine men and three women were taken by bus to the East Clinic in Killaloe yesterday afternoon, where Mr Carmody practised.

Judge Rory McCabe travelled separately, while prosecution counsel Denis Vaughan Buckley SC and Stephen Coughlan, along with representatives of Mr Carmody’s defence team, were also there.

Before their departure, Judge McCabe told the jurors that they would simply walk around the clinic and see for themselves what was there.

Judge McCabe said there would not be a question-and-answer session, but that somebody from the clinic would show them the way.

Pat Marrinan SC, for Mr Carmody, has already told the jury that the East Clinic was based on the US and continental model and was advanced in the integration of conventional and complementary medicine.

In court yesterday, the jury heard from a succession of Garda witnesses in relation to a search of the East Clinic and Mr Carmody’s home in 2004.

During the search of the clinic, Det Garda John O’Connor confirmed that he retrieved a medical file in relation to a Mark Hadden.

The court has already heard that Mr Hadden has recently died, but Mr Marrinan said yesterday that the contact of witnesses with Mr Hadden in the case had emerged as quite significant.

Mr Marrinan has already told the jury that when he was aged 14, Mr Hadden was given three months to live after being diagnosed with cancer, but lived for another eight years under the care of Mr Carmody.

Det Garda O’Connor said that Mr Hadden’s file was the only one he retrieved out of maybe 30 medical files from the clinic.

The trial continues today.