Doctor denies sex with babysitter, 16

A Canterbury doctor plied a female patient with drugs and alcohol and had sex with her while she was his family's baby-sitter, a disciplinary tribunal has been told.

The doctor, who is still practising, denies the allegations which date back to 1985, when the complainant was 16.

The doctor, who has interim name suppression, appeared before a five-member Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal in Christchurch yesterday, charged with disgraceful conduct for having sex with the patient.

It is also alleged he supplied her with marijuana, cocaine and nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, The Press reported.

The woman told the hearing she was raped just three weeks before the first of two sexual encounters with the doctor.

The doctor had been counselling her after the sex attack and she started baby-sitting his young children, she said.

Both sexual encounters happened at the doctor's house, the woman said.

Just before the first alleged encounter, she said the doctor told her he had been attracted to her since he first met her and had asked her to baby-sit so he could get to know her better.

The woman said she tried to end the relationship after the second sexual encounter.

She went overseas, but after she returned in 2000 she admitted she set up private email accounts to keep in touch with the doctor.

She said the doctor had told her he wanted to resume the relationship.

In May 2001, when the woman was the same age as the doctor had been when they had their alleged affair, she said she was struggling to understand how he could have considered having such a relationship with a 16-year-old patient.

"I decided that I didn't have to cope with the matter on my own any more, that the medical authorities could sort it out for me."

The hearing continues today.

- NZPA