A 25-year-old woman told a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court a doctor in the Mater Hospital in Dublin gave her an internal examination and told her she had "a lovely nipple" before she had her tonsils removed.
She said the doctor inserted his finger into her four times, kissed her on the lips and persisted although she pushed him away several times. Afterwards she complained to a nurse but was told that she could talk to the doctor. She declined.
A 35-year-old Pakistani doctor has pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting the woman and another female tonsilitis patient on July 28th, 1997.
When the trial opened the court heard the doctor's function was to take a pre-operation clinical history.
The man's defence counsel, Martin Giblin SC, said his client would show the court that his actions were carried out according to his understanding of medical books available. He was not being paid for his work in the Mater.
The woman said the accused, an anaesthetist, had asked if she was on the Pill. She knew it was a relevant medical question but she felt uneasy about his manner.
She said that she had a steady boyfriend and she used protection during sex, but was not using the Pill.
He looked at her in a strange way and she felt uneasy. He told her he was in the country about two weeks and did not have a steady girlfriend.
Cross-examining, Mr Giblin put it that she had misunderstood the accused when she claimed he said he had been in Ireland for 15 days. She replied that he must have been lying because that is what he indicated to her.
She said it was difficult to say exactly when she felt something was wrong. She believed she allowed him to continue with the examination after he examined her internally because she was in a state of shock.
She said she didn't know why three nurses had said that she told them the doctor had inserted his finger into her vagina only twice. "I know what happened. I was there. He knows what happened. He was there," she added.
Mr Giblin said that the situation was unusual, to which the witness responded: "Unusual is too small a word to say what happened."
The trial continues.