GARDAI have confirmed that a file containing almost 200 complaints against a Cork GP is being sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions for direction as to whether charges are to be brought.
Garda Supt Tom Waldron said yesterday gardai received over 700 phone complaints from former female patients of Dr Jim Barry and that 95 written complaints had been sent to the DPP with another 100 to be sent next week.
Gardai began investigating Dr Barry when it was alleged he secretly videotaped a number of female patients. Gardai raided his surgery in Sydney Place, Wellington Road, last year and seized a quantity of videotapes.
As well as finding a number of commercially made hardcore pornographic tapes, gardai also found 14 tapes featuring former female patients of Dr Barry attending his surgery, Supt Waldron confirmed.
However these 14 tapes would not be included in the file being sent to the DPP as videotaping someone is not an offence. "It may be unethical, it may be immodest, it may even be sinful but it is not illegal," he said.
It is understood that the 200 or so complaints being forwarded to the DPP relate in the main to examinations including internal and other intimate examinations conducted by Dr Barry on female patients.
The DPP will have to decide whether any of these examinations exceeded the patients' medical requirements and if so, whether they may have constituted some form of assault or other offence against the patient.
Supt Waldron said the video tapes featuring Dr Barry's former patients had been viewed by two female gardai at Anglesea Street station and were securely locked away at the station.
There are no plans to destroy them but the gardai will hand over individual tapes to any of Dr Barry's former patients if they require them for any civil action they may be taking against him.
Ms Sinead Behan, a solicitor for a number of Dr Barry's former patients, commended the gardai for their handling of the matter.