NSW: Eye doctor to keep practising despite child porn conviction

AAP General News (Australia)
04-05-2007
NSW: Eye doctor to keep practising despite child porn conviction

By Lisa Allan

SYDNEY, April 5 AAP - A Sydney eye surgeon who downloaded more than 10,000 images of
child pornography to his home computer over a six-year period has been allowed to continue
practising medicine.

But the NSW Medical Tribunal imposed restrictions on Dr Richard Wingate today, preventing
him treating patients under the age of 18 without a nurse present.

The tribunal considered three complaints brought by the Health Care Complaints Commission
(HCCC), following Dr Wingate's conviction for possessing child pornography.

The HCCC claimed he was unfit to practise medicine, arguing he was guilty of unsatisfactory
professional conduct and was not of good character.

The ophthalmologist pleaded guilty in 2004 after police found 66 images of boys on
his personal computer.

Dr Wingate was fined $6,000 and placed on a three-year good behaviour bond in 2005.

Police had extracted 66 images from approximately 600 contained on an external hard
drive attached to his home computer.

The images were of children, apparently under the age of 16, and included still shots
and sequential images explicitly depicting sexual acts.

Police also found a further 10,000 images that met the description of child pornography
on Dr Wingate's computer.

While he was never charged over those images, their existence meant Dr Wingate's conviction
"was not reflective of the full extent of his conduct," the tribunal said in its judgment.

Dr Wingate had initially said the images, which were downloaded from 1998 to 2004,
were "funny", the tribunal said.

While Dr Wingate had agreed his conduct had been "disgraceful and immoral", there was
no suggestion he had acted inappropriately in connection with his work, it said.

"The offence and the extent of downloading over a long period of time were serious,
and the motive was sexual gratification," the tribunal said.

"We think, however, that Dr Wingate appreciates the seriousness of his conduct and
... is unlikely to repeat the offence."

The tribunal, made up of Deputy Chairperson Judge Nigel Rein and Doctors Michael Giuffrida,
Jude Ng and Lindsey Napier, found it was not established that Dr Wingate was unfit to
practise medicine or that he was not of good character.

It allowed Dr Wingate to continue practising but ordered that he be supervised if dealing
with patients under the age of 18.

It also ordered Dr Wingate to continue treatment with a psychologist or psychiatrist
and to be reprimanded for downloading the images and for failing to provide accurate information
to the medical board regarding his sexual orientation.

AAP lma/wjf/cp/mn

KEYWORD: WINGATE

2007 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.