A DOCTOR has been found not guilty of the sexual assault of a nurse following a three-day jury trial at Castlebar Circuit Court.
The jury of eight men and four women returned a unanimous verdict acquitting the doctor of the charge of forcibly kissing the woman and of fumbling her breast area.
The doctor, who faced a maximum sentence of five years' imprisonment, hugged his wife as the verdict was handed down.
The nurse was escorted in tears from the courtroom by her boyfriend and colleagues.
In his final submission to the jury, Mr Padraic O'Higgins SC, for the accused, said a conflict of evidence which had arisen between the testimonies of the nurse meant there was an element of doubt in the case, and therefore, his client should be acquitted.
The doctor had come into the court an innocent man and should leave it an innocent man unless all jury members were convinced he was guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
"If you convict him you must be certain, and morally certain, he is guilty of the charge. In giving the benefit of doubt to the accused, you are not doing him any favour. You are simply giving him his right", he said.
Mr O'Higgins said his client had admitted he had indeed kissed the complainant, and passionately so, but that he believed it had been consensual.
"Passionate embraces aren't something that just happen between young people. They happen between people in their 40s and 50s and at any age.
"That is what happened here and both of them realised it was inappropriate and stopped".
He suggested his client had already suffered more than enough for his lack of judgment by what he had already gone through in the process of the court case.
Addressing the jury, Mr John Jordan, prosecuting, said the defendant was an intelligent man who, having read every detail of the book of evidence, had concocted a story to fit around it.
"The fact that he is a highly qualified individual does not mean he is incapable of committing this offence.
"Of course, he may have forced himself on the complainant, not for one moment thinking he would end up in the dock answering for it. The question is, did he intend to force himself upon her, kiss her and grope her, in the knowledge that it was unwanted, and, if he did so, that is a crime.
"If that kind of thing went unpunished in this country there would be total disorder and a breakdown in the rules of our society.
"There is a line that should not be crossed and in my submission, the accused not alone crossed that line, but when asked to stop he continued.
"I suggest he did this because he thought he could get away with it."
Judge Harvey Kenny, directing that the jury must return a unanimous verdict, said he wished to exercise his right to issue a caution, which the jury could choose to heed or ignore.
"The warning I wish to give you is this. It is dangerous to convict a person on the uncorroborated evidence of a complainant. All I am saying is that you should exercise caution". The jury finally returned a unanimous not guilty verdict at 6 p.m.