Late-term abortion clinic searched

MELBOURNE - Police have raided Victoria's only late-term abortion clinic where an anaesthetist is suspected of deliberately infecting his patients.

The Department of Human Services (DHS) announced in late July that of 1800 women tested who had come into contact with James Latham Peters, 58 had tested positive to hepatitis C. Thirty-five of the women had genetic links to Dr Peters' strain of the disease.

It contacted a further 400 women who were to be tested and almost 30 New Zealand women were also to be checked.

A Victoria police spokeswoman said officers executed a search warrant on the clinic where Dr Peters worked, a clinic in Croydon in Melbourne's east, at 8.30am (AEDT) on Saturday.

The clinic is now known as Marie Stopes International Maroondah.

Victoria Police were expected to comment on the case later on Saturday.

The DHS investigation was sparked early this year after 12 women were found to have contracted hepatitis C after undergoing procedures at the clinic.

Dr Peters was suspended by the Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria (MPBV) in February and a police taskforce called Operation Clays is investigating him.

Law firm Slater and Gordon is representing at least 30 hepatitis C infected women who are demanding compensation from the clinic, Dr Peters and possibly the MPBV for allowing him to practise unsupervised.

Dr Peters, a widower and father of two teenage children, has a history of drug abuse and received a suspended jail sentence in 1996 for writing around 100 stolen pethidine prescriptions for himself and his late wife Julia.

- AAP