A JURY will resume its deliberations this morning in the trial of a dentist who denies a charge of sexually assaulting a trainee dental nurse at his dental practice in Cork city.
Dr John Tait (60), Glen House, Upper Rochestown, Cork, denies a single charge of sexually assaulting the young woman at his dental practice at St Patrick’s Terrace, Douglas, on a date in 2006.
Yesterday at Cork Circuit Criminal Court, after the jury of eight men and four women deliberated for about 2½ hours, Judge Rory McCabe sent them home for the night to resume again this morning.
During the trial, the woman told how, after she successfully applied for a job with Dr Tait, he had offered to carry out a dental examination on her because he believed headaches she was having could be related to her having temporo mandibular joint dysfunction.
The examination involved Dr Tait checking the alignment between her jaw and sternum and involved him putting his fingers down her neck to her sternum and he ended up with two of his fingers between her breasts on what she believed was her sternum, she said.
She said Dr Tait said she had a low sternum and he could not reach it because of the wire in her bra. “He hit the wire in my bra. He asked me if it was at all possible could I go into the bathroom and take off my bra and come back out with just my tunic and vest on,” she said.
The woman agreed to remove the bra but she said Dr Tait then asked could he unzip her tunic to facilitate a neck examination but her tunic slipped down to her waist and moments later, he lifted her vest, fully exposing her breasts.
“I was looking at his face and he was looking at my chest. I felt really uncomfortable and looked away,” said the woman, adding that her breasts were exposed for about a minute and Dr Tait said nothing before mumbling, “Okay” and told her to put her clothes back on.
The jury also heard from Dr Tait who denied any impropriety with the woman and denied he had asked her to remove her bra on the day in question or that when she returned from another room, that he then lifted up her thermal vest to expose her breasts.