AN INJUNCTION restraining a Cork doctor from reducing his assets in the State to below £20,000 was granted to one of his former female patients by Cork Circuit Court yesterday.
The woman, named in court as "a woman", claims that Dr James Barry (71), of Sydney Place, Wellington Road, Cork, made secret video recordings while examining her. Ms Marjorie Farrelly, barrister, representing the woman, said that it had been established that her client appeared in three short clips among a number of tape recordings now in the possession of the gardai.
A woman garda had perused the relevant sections of tape, each less than two minutes in length, and the application before the court was for these recordings to be made available to the plaintiff. Ms Farrelly added that various aspects of the recordings and the manner in which the video had been made were fundamental to her client's breach of trust case.
Mr Barry Galvin, State Solicitor, said that a file on the matter had been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who was concerned that the confidentiality of other patients who attended Dr Barry should be protected. Mr Galvin said that he had received no instructions and asked for an adjournment. Judge Patrick Moran allowed the application. The question of the tapes will now be ruled on at the Circuit Court in Mallow on March 22nd.
Mr Patrick Horgan, barrister, representing Dr Barry, said that a previous injunction restraining his client from reducing his assets in the State to below £30,000 had been granted by the court. He submitted that this should also cover the present application.
Ms Farrelly said that Dr Barry had not appeared before the court to challenge the application and had apparently removed himself from the jurisdiction. Judge Moran said that each plaintiff was entitled to protect herself in terms of compensation which might or might not be awarded. He made a further order restraining Dr Barry from reducing his assets to below £20,000.
Mr Horgan applied to the court to have the anonymity surrounding the plaintiff's name removed on the grounds that a recent decision of the High Court, in a separate case, had rejected such anonymity. Ms Farrelly said that her client's case was an exceptional one. Part of her application was to do with the fact that her constitutional right to privacy had been violated in the incidents alleged to have taken place. To grant Mr Horgan's application would be to compound the wrong, she added.
Judge Moran ruled that the circumstances in the case were exceptional and refused the application.