ACC doctor backs down on legal action

Photo / Alan Gibson.

Senior ACC clinician Dr Peter Jansen has dropped his legal action for defamation against an ACC sexual abuse claimant.

Dr Jansen, the lead clinician in the sensitive claims unit, was suing the woman - known as Jax - over a blog posting she wrote in November last year.

The woman was an ACC claimant for treatment for depression following sexual abuse.

In a statement this afternoon, Dr Jansen said although he continued to regard her blog post as defamatory, he had instructed his lawyers to withdraw the legal action.

"While I continue to regard the statements made on her blog as defamatory, and would obviously prefer that she withdrew them and apologised, as a clinician I appreciate that her recovery must take precedence at this time."

Dr Jansen said he had not and could not have known she was an ACC claimant at the time, because the blog post was written under a pseudonym.

In a follow up blog post about the legal action, Jax had also questioned whether Dr Jansen had accessed her private file to obtain her address.

Dr Jansen said yesterday ACC had investigated that allegation at his request and concluded he had never accessed any personal information it held about the woman.

Labour MP Carmel Sepuloni had raised Dr Jansen's legal action in Parliament.