A Cork GP has confirmed that he has lodged appeal papers with the High Court seeking to overturn a Medical Council decision to strike him off the General Register of Medical Practitioners after the council ruled that he was guilty of professional misconduct.
Dr James Barry told The Irish Times he lodged papers with the High Court last Thursday, appealing the decision to strike him off the register by the Medical Council following a hearing by its Fitness to Practise Committee in July.
Dr Barry said he was basing his appeal to the High Court on a number of grounds, including that he was denied fair procedure by the Fitness to Practise Committee, which heard evidence from seven of Dr Barry's former patients as well as two medical experts and a Garda officer.
The committee found that in the case of one patient, Ms C, Dr Barry had made sexual advances towards her, pursued a personal relationship of an emotional and/or sexual relationship with her, made indecent suggestions to her and had taken improper photographic recordings of her.
But Dr Barry said he would argue that the Medical Council was wrong to accept allegations made by Ms C when she did not attend the hearing to give evidence and furnished no proper excuse for her failure to attend the hearing.
The committee also found that Dr Barry had indecently assaulted and made improper photographic recordings of a second woman and had carried out improper treatments on a third woman.
It also found that he had carried out improper medical examinations of five other women.
But Dr Barry said he would argue that he was denied a fair hearing in that he wasn't provided with legal assistance or representation by the Medical Council whose own committee was represented by a senior counsel, junior counsel and instructing firm of solicitors.
Dr Barry, who is 81, will also argue that the Medical Council conducted the hearing in an oppressive manner by failing to give him proper rest periods and by continuing with the inquiry in his absence after he was unable to continue attending because of infirmity and exhaustion.
Dr Barry, from Lauriston Lodge, Glanmire, Co Cork, explained that he had a bad back, which requires that he sleeps on a special mattress, and this prevented him from staying overnight in Dublin.
For this reason, he said he had to leave the hearing each day at 12.30pm to catch a train back to Cork.
He said this resulted in him missing the evidence of four of the seven women patients who testified and that the committee failed to recall these witnesses when he was present so that he could cross-examine them on their allegations.
Dr Barry will also argue that the Medical Council had 10 years in which to furnish him with documents relating to the complaints but that it forwarded them to him only a month before the hearing and swamped him with so many documents that he hadn't time to consult them all.
Contacted by The Irish Times regarding Dr Barry's claims of unfair procedure and other complaints about the handling of his hearing, a spokeswoman for the Medical Council said the council did not comment on individual cases.
Last March at Cork Circuit Criminal Court, Dr Barry obtained a stay on the State prosecuting him on 212 sexual assault charges after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that his human rights were violated by the State's delay in proceeding with the case against him.
The charges, which spanned the period from 1966 to 1995, were brought by the Garda after complaints by some 38 former patients of Dr Barry's.
These were triggered by a female patient coming forward in May 1995 and alleging that Dr Barry had made video recordings of her nude or semi-naked.
