He will not be able to return to his medical office tomorrow. The Nîmes criminal court sentenced a general practitioner this Tuesday, November 26. He has a definitive ban on any medical or paramedical activity.
The decision is enforceable this evening. That is to say that this Tuesday, November 26, 2024 at 5 p.m., a general practitioner from Gard is obliged to leave his office without any delay. The Nîmes criminal court has just imposed two years in prison with a three-year probationary suspension on this practitioner based near Nîmes. In the obligations listed at the criminal hearing by President Jérôme Reynes, there is an obligation of care, an obligation to compensate the victims and a ban on approaching them. In addition, the magistrate reminds the accused that he must definitely leave his profession since “any medical or paramedical activity” is now forbidden to him. A doctor who is automatically registered in the sex offender file.
This atypical defendant, aged 64, had until now never had the opportunity to approach a judicial court. But he appeared this Tuesday for sexual assault on two patients. The GP denies the accusations of a sexual nature. However, two patients pushed the door of a gendarmerie barracks on July 10 and 20, 2024 to file complaints. “There is not one but two accusers and the people who accuse this doctor do not know each other and they have no reason to blame him, quite the contrary”estimates the public prosecutor Stéphane Bertrand who thinks that the speech of the two victims is coherent. These are two similar testimonies which say that that day they had an alcoholic and staggering doctor in front of them. “I was on the examination table and I thought he was going to fall,” adds a victim. A doctor who refutes the facts by believing that he has dizziness and that he is suffering from “two serious African diseases… I have flare-ups, I'm tired“, he says at the bar of the Nîmes criminal court.
“You want us to make love to prove to you that you are a beautiful woman”
A former patient who became an accuser describes this day of June 10 in court. She made an appointment and confidently went to see the family doctor around 4:30 p.m. This woman has no idea what is going to happen. ” He came to pick up patients from the waiting room and he was staggering. We didn't understand what he was saying and even his secretary made him repeat it.”relates the patient who then discusses her weight problems in the privacy of the medical office. “But you are a beautiful woman, you want us to make love to prove to you that you are a beautiful woman”, the doctor would have said according to the still emotional patient. “He told me, I am a man who pleases, I have several mistresses.” According to the complainant, the doctor then touched her private parts when she came for a thyroid check-up. A patient who will then react and leave the medical office very shocked.
“I should have canceled this consultation because I was feeling dizzy.”replies the general practitioner who always diverts the discussion towards his presumed medical problems. A man suspended by his peers from June 20, 2024, and who was able to resume his activity on October 1.
“I didn't imagine he would dispute the facts today“, wonders Maître Valérie Bach, counsel for the two civil parties. “What danger in freedom and activity”continues the Nîmes lawyer.
“His entire career has been punctuated with praise, he has never had any problems with the Justice system.”resumes his advice Master Romain Floutier. An old-fashioned doctor who worked hard, according to the lawyer, while seeing patients.days and nights”. A generalist who does not dispute “saucy remarks”, “but that does not make him a dangerous man”, insists Mr. Floutier.
The court ruled that the doctor should no longer approach his patients. He has 10 days to appeal this conviction…
