A jury has acquitted retired surgeon Michael Shine of indecently assaulting three young male patients over 40 years ago.
Mr Shine (85) of Wellington Road in Dublin had pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to seven charges of indecently assaulting five patients at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital and at his private clinic, both in Drogheda, Co Louth, on dates between 1964 and 1991.
Shortly before 4pm on Wednesday the jury of four men and eight women told Judge Cormac Quinn it had reached majority verdicts on some of the counts.
The jury found Mr Shine not guilty of four charges which cover alleged offences against three teenagers on dates in 1964, 1970 and and 1976.
Mr Shine has denied ever seeing these patients and there were no medical records to confirm that he had seen them on the dates of the alleged assaults.
Judge Quinn previously warned jurors that if they had a reasonable doubt in relation to records missing due to the delay in bringing the complaints, they must give the benefit of the doubt to accused.
Alleged assaults
The five complainants were all teenage boys at the time they allege Mr Shine touched them in their genital areas while treating them for injuries such as cuts to a knee, an injury to a finger and an injured toe.
The outstanding three counts cover alleged assaults on two teenage patients on dates between 1974 and 1976. Mr Shine admits attending to these patients but denies that anything inappropriate was done during his medical examinations.
The jury began deliberating on Tuesday afternoon. Having deliberated for more than five hours in all, Judge Quinn sent the jury home on Wednesday night to resume deliberations on Thursday morning.
In his charge to the jury on Tuesday, Judge Quinn said corroboration evidence – credible independent evidence of the alleged acts which implicate the accused in those acts – did not exist in relation to any of the complainants.
He told the jurors it “is dangerous to convict on the uncorroborated evidence of any of the complainants” but added they were nevertheless entitled to find the accused guilty beyond reasonable doubt once they had taken this into account.
“You have to exercise special care on whether you believe each complainant. You have to exercise caution before acting on unsupported evidence,” he said.