1
00:00:03,279 --> 00:00:07,080
Speaker 1: My name is Headley Thomas. Sick to Death is based

2
00:00:07,120 --> 00:00:09,320
Speaker 1: on my book of the same name, and it's the

3
00:00:09,400 --> 00:00:13,880
Speaker 1: true story of doctor Jant Patel's lies and manipulation and

4
00:00:13,920 --> 00:00:17,840
Speaker 1: the herculean effort it took to finally stop him. We've

5
00:00:17,960 --> 00:00:22,160
Speaker 1: used voice actors throughout this series, and on occasion the

6
00:00:22,200 --> 00:00:25,480
Speaker 1: real people from the story have read their words for us.

7
00:00:26,640 --> 00:00:29,400
Speaker 1: It is brought to you by me and The Australian.

8
00:00:35,600 --> 00:00:40,400
Speaker 1: The remarkable case of doctor Jant Patel has a long tale.

9
00:00:40,920 --> 00:00:43,280
Speaker 1: We haven't quite got to the end of it yet.

10
00:00:43,800 --> 00:00:47,560
Speaker 1: Let me explain. When I wrote my book Sick to Death,

11
00:00:47,640 --> 00:00:51,199
Speaker 1: on which this podcast series is based, I didn't know

12
00:00:51,320 --> 00:00:55,000
Speaker 1: what would happen next. When that book was released two

13
00:00:55,040 --> 00:00:58,680
Speaker 1: decades ago, Patel was keeping his head down at his

14
00:00:58,840 --> 00:01:03,040
Speaker 1: home in Portland, Oregon, with his wife Kashore. He had

15
00:01:03,080 --> 00:01:07,160
Speaker 1: even been pretending to be his brother if Australian journalists

16
00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:11,319
Speaker 1: called to seek an interview. But Patel had followed the

17
00:01:11,400 --> 00:01:14,920
Speaker 1: train wreck in Queensland, which came after he was exposed

18
00:01:14,959 --> 00:01:17,920
Speaker 1: by a Google search as a disgrace surgeon who had

19
00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:23,039
Speaker 1: lied to obtain registration in Bunderberg. The public hearings in

20
00:01:23,160 --> 00:01:29,640
Speaker 1: Brisbane Townsville and Bunderberg of the Roller Coaster Inquiry, where nurses, doctors, patients,

21
00:01:29,760 --> 00:01:33,880
Speaker 1: and health bureaucrats gave evidence about Patel, and his infiltration

22
00:01:34,120 --> 00:01:38,160
Speaker 1: of a sick health system were widely reported, including in

23
00:01:38,319 --> 00:01:43,160
Speaker 1: his hometown of Portland. Patel must have feared what would

24
00:01:43,200 --> 00:01:47,520
Speaker 1: happen next. As you heard in the previous episode, the

25
00:01:47,560 --> 00:01:52,160
Speaker 1: inquiry's second commissioner, the retired Supreme Court of Appeal Judge

26
00:01:52,240 --> 00:01:56,320
Speaker 1: Jeff Davies, made damning findings about Petel's conduct and the

27
00:01:56,440 --> 00:02:01,720
Speaker 1: deaths and injuries of patients. Tavies referred a lot of

28
00:02:01,800 --> 00:02:06,520
Speaker 1: evidence for police investigation, and while the criminal justice system

29
00:02:06,640 --> 00:02:10,880
Speaker 1: grinds its gears all too slowly, this was not just

30
00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:16,000
Speaker 1: going to blow over. Patients and their advocates. Good people

31
00:02:16,120 --> 00:02:19,640
Speaker 1: like Tony Hoffman and Beryl Crosby and the many lawyers

32
00:02:19,680 --> 00:02:22,160
Speaker 1: who had become involved were not going to let it

33
00:02:22,200 --> 00:02:26,240
Speaker 1: blow over. In the meantime, however, my publishers had a

34
00:02:26,280 --> 00:02:29,640
Speaker 1: book to release. Sick to Death came out in early

35
00:02:29,680 --> 00:02:34,120
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, but there was something missing, the

36
00:02:34,200 --> 00:02:39,480
Speaker 1: extraordinary events that came after the book was published. Now,

37
00:02:39,520 --> 00:02:42,960
Speaker 1: in this podcast series, we can close the loop and

38
00:02:43,040 --> 00:02:48,000
Speaker 1: provide that ending two final episodes in this series, with

39
00:02:48,160 --> 00:02:52,799
Speaker 1: new and archived interviews and fresh analysis looking at how

40
00:02:52,919 --> 00:02:56,680
Speaker 1: doctor Patel and the patients fared in the criminal justice

41
00:02:56,720 --> 00:03:01,480
Speaker 1: system in Queensland. These episodes were developed in early twenty

42
00:03:01,520 --> 00:03:04,640
Speaker 1: twenty six with my friend and colleague, the former lawyer

43
00:03:04,720 --> 00:03:09,760
Speaker 1: Karina Berger. The style, content and the storytelling in these

44
00:03:09,800 --> 00:03:13,520
Speaker 1: two final episodes are different to what you've experienced in

45
00:03:13,560 --> 00:03:19,560
Speaker 1: the previous sixteen episodes. Thank you for listening, Doctor Patel.

46
00:03:19,680 --> 00:03:21,880
Speaker 2: Last scene in April speeding away from our K two

47
00:03:21,960 --> 00:03:26,120
Speaker 2: news camera already though Queensland's premiere is talking extradition from

48
00:03:26,120 --> 00:03:26,960
Speaker 2: the United States.

49
00:03:27,120 --> 00:03:29,280
Speaker 1: We're going to get on and do what needs to

50
00:03:29,280 --> 00:03:29,800
Speaker 1: be done.

51
00:03:29,919 --> 00:03:32,679
Speaker 3: Will do everything we can within the law to bring

52
00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:33,600
Speaker 3: Betel to justice.

53
00:03:35,400 --> 00:03:38,880
Speaker 1: Those grabs from a report aired on Oregon's TV news

54
00:03:38,960 --> 00:03:42,400
Speaker 1: channel K two in early two thousand and eight foreshadowed

55
00:03:42,440 --> 00:03:46,240
Speaker 1: the state of play at that time. In Australia, police

56
00:03:46,240 --> 00:03:50,040
Speaker 1: detectives on a special task force had converged on Bunderberg.

57
00:03:50,640 --> 00:03:53,840
Speaker 1: There were dozens of formal interviews to do with patients

58
00:03:53,880 --> 00:03:57,640
Speaker 1: and hospital staff. Some had given evidence at the public

59
00:03:57,680 --> 00:04:02,040
Speaker 1: inquiry in two thousand and five, but for any future

60
00:04:02,080 --> 00:04:06,640
Speaker 1: criminal trial of JR. Patel. Every I needed to be dotted,

61
00:04:06,760 --> 00:04:12,800
Speaker 1: every tea crossed. Further investigations and statements were absolutely essential

62
00:04:12,840 --> 00:04:17,000
Speaker 1: for the police to build a broad case spanning allegations

63
00:04:17,040 --> 00:04:22,520
Speaker 1: of manslaughter, grievous bodily harm and fraud. Here's Tony Hoffman

64
00:04:22,680 --> 00:04:26,480
Speaker 1: talking to me in twenty twenty six and recalling the

65
00:04:26,520 --> 00:04:30,080
Speaker 1: work of police detectives and the efforts to bring Patel

66
00:04:30,320 --> 00:04:31,480
Speaker 1: back to Australia.

67
00:04:32,440 --> 00:04:35,600
Speaker 4: The hospital was full of people that had come up

68
00:04:35,600 --> 00:04:40,000
Speaker 4: from Brisbane to do all the investigations and try and

69
00:04:40,040 --> 00:04:42,599
Speaker 4: make sense of what was going on a huge amount

70
00:04:42,640 --> 00:04:46,800
Speaker 4: of activity at the time they were in Bunderberg, and

71
00:04:47,040 --> 00:04:51,120
Speaker 4: I was concerned about what was going to be available

72
00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:56,480
Speaker 4: to the prosecution in terms of the notes and things,

73
00:04:56,560 --> 00:05:01,839
Speaker 4: and about phone calls and conversation. One of the detectives

74
00:05:02,040 --> 00:05:04,960
Speaker 4: I remember saying to me they would be able to

75
00:05:04,960 --> 00:05:08,159
Speaker 4: subpoena all of those records.

76
00:05:08,200 --> 00:05:13,279
Speaker 1: After all of the inquiry's findings had been delivered. Did

77
00:05:13,320 --> 00:05:18,360
Speaker 1: you have any concerns that the wills of justice might

78
00:05:18,560 --> 00:05:19,080
Speaker 1: fall off?

79
00:05:19,560 --> 00:05:20,640
Speaker 5: Yeah. Absolutely.

80
00:05:21,520 --> 00:05:24,640
Speaker 4: I was very concerned about how the whole picture was

81
00:05:24,680 --> 00:05:28,440
Speaker 4: going to be told. Most of the things that they

82
00:05:28,440 --> 00:05:31,800
Speaker 4: were relying on in relation to the Mansoor the cases

83
00:05:31,880 --> 00:05:35,880
Speaker 4: were the notes. I mean, obviously we had the evidence

84
00:05:36,160 --> 00:05:41,120
Speaker 4: from doctor Delacey and other doctors about what had actually

85
00:05:41,200 --> 00:05:43,200
Speaker 4: happened to the patients, but.

86
00:05:43,760 --> 00:05:47,839
Speaker 5: We were relying on the.

87
00:05:47,160 --> 00:05:54,000
Speaker 4: Patient's medical records, and we knew that Patel's medical records

88
00:05:54,080 --> 00:05:59,880
Speaker 4: were not correct. They didn't reflect what was actually happening

89
00:06:00,760 --> 00:06:02,640
Speaker 4: with the patients.

90
00:06:03,200 --> 00:06:06,160
Speaker 5: What was written there was not true.

91
00:06:06,440 --> 00:06:12,000
Speaker 4: So I was very concerned about that and about comments

92
00:06:12,080 --> 00:06:16,200
Speaker 4: that we had heard along the way about certain patients

93
00:06:16,240 --> 00:06:17,880
Speaker 4: like they would have died anyhow.

94
00:06:18,480 --> 00:06:22,359
Speaker 1: Were you being supported at the hospital through that period.

95
00:06:23,040 --> 00:06:27,800
Speaker 4: All of the executive and everybody had been stood down

96
00:06:27,920 --> 00:06:32,239
Speaker 4: or left, so there was lots of different people coming

97
00:06:32,279 --> 00:06:36,680
Speaker 4: in to the hospital. We didn't get a lot of

98
00:06:36,839 --> 00:06:40,360
Speaker 4: support at all. We were left pretty much to just

99
00:06:40,600 --> 00:06:46,320
Speaker 4: continue doing our core business. But it was very much

100
00:06:46,360 --> 00:06:48,680
Speaker 4: in crisis mode.

101
00:06:48,920 --> 00:06:52,640
Speaker 1: As you heard in an earlier episode, Jay Patel had

102
00:06:52,680 --> 00:06:57,160
Speaker 1: engaged Stephen Howes, a hard hitting American lawyer in Portland

103
00:06:57,640 --> 00:07:02,080
Speaker 1: as well as a highly regarded solicitor in Brisbane, Damien Scatini.

104
00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:06,119
Speaker 1: Damien is now a senior partner at a law firm

105
00:07:06,200 --> 00:07:09,080
Speaker 1: in Sydney, and he spoke to me recently about the

106
00:07:09,080 --> 00:07:09,920
Speaker 1: Patel case.

107
00:07:10,800 --> 00:07:13,520
Speaker 6: I generally am on the other side of these things.

108
00:07:13,560 --> 00:07:17,880
Speaker 6: I tend to act in medical no practice cases against

109
00:07:17,960 --> 00:07:20,960
Speaker 6: doctors and hospitals. But I've got to call out of

110
00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:26,000
Speaker 6: the blue from Stephen Howes, his US lawyer, who said,

111
00:07:26,040 --> 00:07:28,600
Speaker 6: I'd like you to work with me on the defense

112
00:07:28,680 --> 00:07:32,880
Speaker 6: for doctor Patel. And I said to Stephen, I think

113
00:07:32,880 --> 00:07:34,520
Speaker 6: he might have the wrong guy, and he said, no,

114
00:07:34,600 --> 00:07:36,640
Speaker 6: that's exactly why I want you to do it, because

115
00:07:36,680 --> 00:07:39,480
Speaker 6: you'll understand the language. So it developed from there, and

116
00:07:39,520 --> 00:07:44,480
Speaker 6: then arranged to go over to Portland to meet doctor

117
00:07:44,480 --> 00:07:47,880
Speaker 6: Patel and his wife and Stephen obviously, which I did.

118
00:07:48,600 --> 00:07:51,840
Speaker 1: When you went to the United States and saw Dr Patel,

119
00:07:52,840 --> 00:07:56,280
Speaker 1: how did he present? Was he strongly protesting his innocence?

120
00:07:57,320 --> 00:08:02,000
Speaker 6: He was as you would expect, and he seemed from

121
00:08:02,080 --> 00:08:06,160
Speaker 6: memory but perplexed about it all. That was my immediate impression.

122
00:08:06,680 --> 00:08:08,680
Speaker 6: There was no indication he was looking to do a

123
00:08:08,760 --> 00:08:13,720
Speaker 6: runner or anything. His wife seemed very nice. Stephen returned

124
00:08:13,760 --> 00:08:17,040
Speaker 6: the favorite. He came out to Brisbane to stay the

125
00:08:17,120 --> 00:08:20,600
Speaker 6: light of the land and kept the low profile here

126
00:08:20,680 --> 00:08:23,440
Speaker 6: so we didn't have people like you asking him questions.

127
00:08:24,640 --> 00:08:27,920
Speaker 1: Damien spoke to me about how He and Stephen Howes,

128
00:08:28,360 --> 00:08:33,520
Speaker 1: Petel's defense team wanted the surgeon's return to Australia to unfold.

129
00:08:34,480 --> 00:08:37,360
Speaker 6: We wanted to pay an ordinary process and that was

130
00:08:37,720 --> 00:08:41,040
Speaker 6: the thinking. We thought it was in Noah's interests, especially

131
00:08:41,080 --> 00:08:44,160
Speaker 6: our client, for there to be a circus. You can

132
00:08:44,200 --> 00:08:47,559
Speaker 6: imagine some tip off at the airport and then all

133
00:08:47,600 --> 00:08:51,480
Speaker 6: the media's there, and then there's the rush down the freeway,

134
00:08:52,040 --> 00:08:53,720
Speaker 6: well all the things that go with that. And it

135
00:08:53,800 --> 00:08:57,160
Speaker 6: was pretty plain even at that point that the publicity

136
00:08:57,320 --> 00:09:02,199
Speaker 6: was against him. He was getting a lot of negative publicity,

137
00:09:02,240 --> 00:09:05,000
Speaker 6: which was based on some ugly factors, in many cases

138
00:09:05,160 --> 00:09:07,559
Speaker 6: because of his race, and.

139
00:09:07,640 --> 00:09:10,319
Speaker 1: That seemed to me to be unfair.

140
00:09:11,080 --> 00:09:13,120
Speaker 6: I was concerned that he wouldn't get a fair hearing

141
00:09:13,160 --> 00:09:16,800
Speaker 6: and it would be on an unfair basis. Representing a

142
00:09:16,920 --> 00:09:20,840
Speaker 6: Clyde is not a popularity contest. You had at some

143
00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:25,120
Speaker 6: point the premiere of the State describing Dr Pateell as

144
00:09:25,120 --> 00:09:27,040
Speaker 6: a serial killer with a scalpel.

145
00:09:28,280 --> 00:09:32,040
Speaker 1: The public perception of doctor Patel being a dodgy doctor

146
00:09:32,240 --> 00:09:36,120
Speaker 1: was all too close to home. One evening when he

147
00:09:36,200 --> 00:09:41,040
Speaker 1: telephoned Damien Scatini at his house in Brisbane. Damien's daughter

148
00:09:41,160 --> 00:09:45,040
Speaker 1: Meg who was then aged eight, picked up the phone.

149
00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:49,000
Speaker 1: When he spoke to her from Portland, Oregon. Meg recognized

150
00:09:49,040 --> 00:09:52,240
Speaker 1: the name Dr Patel and she called out loudly to

151
00:09:52,320 --> 00:09:56,520
Speaker 1: her father, Dad, doctor death is on the phone. There

152
00:09:56,640 --> 00:10:00,200
Speaker 1: was an awkward moment when Damien started talking to his client.

153
00:10:01,040 --> 00:10:03,520
Speaker 7: So it was really going off the rails, and we

154
00:10:03,600 --> 00:10:06,480
Speaker 7: just thought that we'd negotiate with the DPP to have

155
00:10:06,600 --> 00:10:09,560
Speaker 7: the pectual adults in the room try to come up

156
00:10:09,600 --> 00:10:12,440
Speaker 7: with some process and some orderliness about it, and so

157
00:10:12,559 --> 00:10:15,360
Speaker 7: that we could just get on with the actual issues.

158
00:10:16,040 --> 00:10:20,600
Speaker 3: We had what we thought was an agreement to arrange

159
00:10:20,600 --> 00:10:23,720
Speaker 3: for him to come back and then for him to

160
00:10:24,280 --> 00:10:26,160
Speaker 3: return to Portland and come back for his trial.

161
00:10:26,880 --> 00:10:28,880
Speaker 1: We thought this was agreed and then all of a

162
00:10:28,920 --> 00:10:31,040
Speaker 1: sudden it was not agreed.

163
00:10:31,960 --> 00:10:33,720
Speaker 6: In the lead up to the stay election, Yeah, so

164
00:10:33,800 --> 00:10:38,080
Speaker 6: they kybosh the return because I presume that he was

165
00:10:38,080 --> 00:10:39,360
Speaker 6: not welcome before the election.

166
00:10:40,880 --> 00:10:44,760
Speaker 1: In an earlier episode you heard about politics intervening in

167
00:10:44,840 --> 00:10:48,720
Speaker 1: the offer bi Patel and his lawyers that he returned voluntarily.

168
00:10:49,400 --> 00:10:52,680
Speaker 1: The rejection by the Queensland government of the plan that

169
00:10:52,840 --> 00:10:56,560
Speaker 1: Damien Scatini and Stephen Howes had come up with meant

170
00:10:56,559 --> 00:11:00,320
Speaker 1: delay of about a year and a half. The red

171
00:11:00,360 --> 00:11:05,040
Speaker 1: tape and the documents required for formal extraditions slowed everything down.

172
00:11:06,200 --> 00:11:10,200
Speaker 1: After some time, you stopped acting for doctor Pateell. Can

173
00:11:10,240 --> 00:11:11,400
Speaker 1: you tell me why.

174
00:11:12,640 --> 00:11:14,880
Speaker 6: As far as I can tell, Dr Pittell, this took

175
00:11:14,920 --> 00:11:16,600
Speaker 6: his right to a fair trial, that his wrote for

176
00:11:16,600 --> 00:11:19,560
Speaker 6: a free trial, we just stopped at that point.

177
00:11:21,400 --> 00:11:25,760
Speaker 1: Graham Walker of the Queensland Homicide Squad had vast experience

178
00:11:25,800 --> 00:11:29,760
Speaker 1: when it came to murder investigations, but the then detective

179
00:11:29,840 --> 00:11:33,440
Speaker 1: sergeant had never put together a brief of evidence quite

180
00:11:33,559 --> 00:11:36,679
Speaker 1: like the one that was needed against doctor Junt Patel.

181
00:11:37,720 --> 00:11:41,920
Speaker 1: Walker was no Robinson Crusoe in this regard. Surgeons were

182
00:11:42,040 --> 00:11:47,160
Speaker 1: so rarely in the crosshairs of homicide cops. The then

183
00:11:47,240 --> 00:11:51,480
Speaker 1: Police Commissioner of Queensland, Bob Atkinson, was acutely aware that

184
00:11:51,559 --> 00:11:55,880
Speaker 1: the huge amount of publicity about Battell's case potentially posed

185
00:11:56,000 --> 00:11:58,840
Speaker 1: a big problem in any eventual prosecution.

186
00:12:00,200 --> 00:12:04,199
Speaker 6: Absolutely no doubt that anyone in Queensland who goes before

187
00:12:04,200 --> 00:12:06,720
Speaker 6: a judge and jury would receive a fair trial.

188
00:12:07,880 --> 00:12:11,200
Speaker 1: He and Graham Walker resolved there would be very few

189
00:12:11,320 --> 00:12:14,920
Speaker 1: public comments from police from now on, apart from stating

190
00:12:14,920 --> 00:12:18,240
Speaker 1: the obvious that it would be, as Walker put it,

191
00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:24,679
Speaker 1: along and complex investigation. Graham Walker would later receive an

192
00:12:24,720 --> 00:12:28,600
Speaker 1: Australian Police Medal in the Queen's Birthday Honors list for

193
00:12:28,800 --> 00:12:30,440
Speaker 1: his efforts in the Ptel case.

194
00:12:31,520 --> 00:12:35,080
Speaker 8: United States marshals collected the doctor from a Portland prison

195
00:12:35,200 --> 00:12:38,680
Speaker 8: on Wednesday morning. They took him to Los Angeles where

196
00:12:38,679 --> 00:12:42,240
Speaker 8: he waited for the final paperwork to be signed. When

197
00:12:42,240 --> 00:12:44,679
Speaker 8: he gets back in Queensland, he'll be taken to the

198
00:12:44,720 --> 00:12:45,760
Speaker 8: Brisbane Watchhouse.

199
00:12:46,880 --> 00:12:50,760
Speaker 1: By July two thousand and eight, Pttel's extradition to Brisbane

200
00:12:50,840 --> 00:12:55,240
Speaker 1: was just days away. Graham Walker and another more senior

201
00:12:55,320 --> 00:12:59,960
Speaker 1: Queensland Police detective, Daryl Johnson, had agreed on certain protocols

202
00:13:00,160 --> 00:13:04,520
Speaker 1: with the United States law enforcement authorities. The plan was

203
00:13:04,600 --> 00:13:08,040
Speaker 1: for Patel to be handed over by US Marshals to

204
00:13:08,120 --> 00:13:13,640
Speaker 1: the Queensland detectives in Los Angeles International Airport. The surgeon

205
00:13:13,640 --> 00:13:17,640
Speaker 1: would then be escorted by them for the flight to Brisbane.

206
00:13:17,840 --> 00:13:21,600
Speaker 1: Journalists who had been tipped off started sharing information about

207
00:13:21,600 --> 00:13:25,120
Speaker 1: the probable flight that the police and Patel would be on.

208
00:13:26,280 --> 00:13:29,840
Speaker 9: More than three years after he left Australia, Jan Patel

209
00:13:30,080 --> 00:13:30,880
Speaker 9: is coming back.

210
00:13:31,880 --> 00:13:36,240
Speaker 1: Reporters and camera crews crushed newsroom travel budgets to ensure

211
00:13:36,320 --> 00:13:39,559
Speaker 1: they would be along for that ride. Its shaped as

212
00:13:39,600 --> 00:13:44,280
Speaker 1: an exciting reporting assignment, but unfortunately it passed me by.

213
00:13:45,200 --> 00:13:48,920
Speaker 1: I had been to Patel's hometown of Jamdigar in India

214
00:13:48,960 --> 00:13:51,680
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five to speak to his friends

215
00:13:52,080 --> 00:13:56,319
Speaker 1: and fellow surgical classmates and their teacher, and I had

216
00:13:56,320 --> 00:13:59,120
Speaker 1: gone to his United States home in Portland in two

217
00:13:59,200 --> 00:14:02,440
Speaker 1: thousand and six to try to talk to him. I'd

218
00:14:02,480 --> 00:14:05,920
Speaker 1: met Medical board officials there and in New York to

219
00:14:05,960 --> 00:14:10,960
Speaker 1: glean further information about his surgical and medical misdemeanors. But

220
00:14:11,080 --> 00:14:14,600
Speaker 1: by July two thousand and eight, when Patel was about

221
00:14:14,640 --> 00:14:17,720
Speaker 1: to be brought back to Brisbane to face justice, my

222
00:14:17,880 --> 00:14:22,280
Speaker 1: career had detoured out of journalism. I had left newspapers

223
00:14:22,320 --> 00:14:26,360
Speaker 1: to work for a resources company in Queensland. The new

224
00:14:26,440 --> 00:14:32,080
Speaker 1: job meant writing carefully vetted communications about Colseum, gas and LNG.

225
00:14:33,240 --> 00:14:37,120
Speaker 1: After two years, I would return to journalism at The Australian.

226
00:14:38,080 --> 00:14:40,920
Speaker 10: The fifty eight year old and his two homicide detective

227
00:14:41,040 --> 00:14:43,920
Speaker 10: escorts were seated in Rose sixty nine of the aircraft.

228
00:14:44,200 --> 00:14:47,560
Speaker 10: I was seated almost in the next seat Patel's party

229
00:14:47,840 --> 00:14:48,920
Speaker 10: was quickly moved.

230
00:14:50,200 --> 00:14:53,640
Speaker 1: That was Channel ten's reporter who bordered the Quantus seven

231
00:14:53,760 --> 00:14:56,960
Speaker 1: four seven with Patel and more than four hundred other

232
00:14:57,040 --> 00:15:00,440
Speaker 1: passengers in Los Angeles on the night of July nine, nineteen,

233
00:15:00,760 --> 00:15:05,440
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight. The determination of the news crews

234
00:15:05,560 --> 00:15:09,200
Speaker 1: to do their jobs to film Pateel in his economy

235
00:15:09,320 --> 00:15:13,240
Speaker 1: seat in row twenty six and perhaps justify the travel

236
00:15:13,280 --> 00:15:18,240
Speaker 1: expenses became intense. It was matched by the determination of

237
00:15:18,280 --> 00:15:22,240
Speaker 1: the airline's crew and police to stymy the reporters and

238
00:15:22,360 --> 00:15:25,800
Speaker 1: camera operators. As one of them described it.

239
00:15:26,280 --> 00:15:28,320
Speaker 6: We were warns that if we took a shot, so

240
00:15:28,320 --> 00:15:30,680
Speaker 6: if we used a camera on board, that we'd be

241
00:15:30,800 --> 00:15:33,400
Speaker 6: detained and our gear would be taken off us.

242
00:15:34,040 --> 00:15:38,600
Speaker 1: Here's the there NABC Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes describing

243
00:15:38,720 --> 00:15:42,200
Speaker 1: some of the high jinks in what was a media circus,

244
00:15:42,880 --> 00:15:47,160
Speaker 1: the very circus that Damien Scatini believed could have been avoided.

245
00:15:47,960 --> 00:15:51,520
Speaker 11: The police and Quantas wanted minimal coverage. The media were

246
00:15:51,560 --> 00:15:55,000
Speaker 11: determined to get the maximum and to beat their rivals

247
00:15:55,040 --> 00:15:55,760
Speaker 11: in the process.

248
00:15:56,280 --> 00:15:57,520
Speaker 1: But the real prize for.

249
00:15:57,680 --> 00:16:02,760
Speaker 11: Pigheaded hutzpah goes to the Mail whose photographer Nathan Richtor

250
00:16:03,240 --> 00:16:06,000
Speaker 11: managed to snap Pttel in his seat while QF one

251
00:16:06,080 --> 00:16:09,960
Speaker 11: seven six was still on the apron in La Richter

252
00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:13,200
Speaker 11: was determined to send the pick to his newsroom before

253
00:16:13,200 --> 00:16:17,240
Speaker 11: the flight took off. Seven news is Darren Curtis describes

254
00:16:17,280 --> 00:16:20,600
Speaker 11: what happened next. Police were called when a photographer from

255
00:16:20,600 --> 00:16:21,360
Speaker 11: the Courier.

256
00:16:21,080 --> 00:16:24,080
Speaker 2: Mail ignored the warning and attempted to send his photos

257
00:16:24,120 --> 00:16:24,920
Speaker 2: back to Brisbane.

258
00:16:25,840 --> 00:16:27,800
Speaker 1: A Quantus spokesman chimed in.

259
00:16:28,600 --> 00:16:32,800
Speaker 12: A passenger was offloaded in Los Angeles after repeatedly ignoring

260
00:16:32,840 --> 00:16:36,440
Speaker 12: directions from the customer service manager. As a result, the

261
00:16:36,520 --> 00:16:39,960
Speaker 12: flight was delayed for just under one hour fifteen while

262
00:16:39,960 --> 00:16:42,920
Speaker 12: the passenger's baggage was retrieved from the aircraft.

263
00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:46,640
Speaker 13: After boarding a flight in Los Angeles yesterday, the former

264
00:16:46,680 --> 00:16:49,480
Speaker 13: Bunderberg surgeon touchdown in Brisbane early this morning.

265
00:16:50,600 --> 00:16:55,560
Speaker 1: Media helicopters and newscrs followed a convoy of police vehicles

266
00:16:55,600 --> 00:16:59,840
Speaker 1: from the airport to the Brisbane Watchhouse. Darryl Johnson, the

267
00:17:00,080 --> 00:17:04,040
Speaker 1: senior detective who had flown across the Pacific to collect Patel,

268
00:17:04,240 --> 00:17:05,160
Speaker 1: sounded relieved.

269
00:17:05,920 --> 00:17:08,560
Speaker 14: It's very pleasing and it'll be the culmination of our

270
00:17:08,560 --> 00:17:09,400
Speaker 14: long investigation.

271
00:17:09,720 --> 00:17:10,000
Speaker 15: Again.

272
00:17:10,240 --> 00:17:12,520
Speaker 14: He has to pace Gord and natural justice. What we're

273
00:17:12,520 --> 00:17:13,119
Speaker 14: saying to it no.

274
00:17:14,520 --> 00:17:17,840
Speaker 1: Beryl Crosby spoke two reporters at the time too.

275
00:17:18,680 --> 00:17:21,000
Speaker 16: Obviously there's been a lot of hiccups along the way,

276
00:17:21,240 --> 00:17:23,320
Speaker 16: a lot of setbacks, and we always held the faith

277
00:17:23,840 --> 00:17:25,280
Speaker 16: that this day would come.

278
00:17:26,359 --> 00:17:30,520
Speaker 1: With Damien Scatini and Stephen Howes no longer acting for

279
00:17:30,760 --> 00:17:35,440
Speaker 1: Jon Patel, he turned to another Brisbane solicitor, Aaron Ranigher,

280
00:17:35,720 --> 00:17:40,040
Speaker 1: who stood next to his new client. Patel looklam soon

281
00:17:40,119 --> 00:17:41,960
Speaker 1: after his arrival in Brisbane.

282
00:17:42,440 --> 00:17:45,440
Speaker 17: It will now start preparing his defense and once he

283
00:17:45,480 --> 00:17:47,840
Speaker 17: has recovered from his slip and gets a bit of rest,

284
00:17:48,320 --> 00:17:51,239
Speaker 17: we asked that you respect his privacy and fryan live

285
00:17:51,320 --> 00:17:53,760
Speaker 17: him in peace and he won't be making any public

286
00:17:53,800 --> 00:17:57,440
Speaker 17: statements or answering any questions until the trial is very

287
00:17:57,440 --> 00:17:57,920
Speaker 17: well over.

288
00:18:00,320 --> 00:18:04,600
Speaker 1: Macundrey Pateel's criminal trial finally got under way in the

289
00:18:04,640 --> 00:18:08,280
Speaker 1: Old Supreme Court of Queensland in Brisbane on the third

290
00:18:08,359 --> 00:18:13,240
Speaker 1: Monday of March twenty ten. The building on George Street

291
00:18:13,359 --> 00:18:16,640
Speaker 1: was familiar territory for the journalists and a short walk

292
00:18:16,680 --> 00:18:19,080
Speaker 1: from where the public hearings had been held for the

293
00:18:19,119 --> 00:18:23,240
Speaker 1: Commission of Inquiry five years earlier. At the other end,

294
00:18:23,240 --> 00:18:27,720
Speaker 1: of George Street. The state's political leadership had changed. Peter

295
00:18:27,840 --> 00:18:31,920
Speaker 1: Beatty no longer ran Queensland. He had decided to retire

296
00:18:32,240 --> 00:18:36,160
Speaker 1: to leave politics on his own terms. The reins were

297
00:18:36,200 --> 00:18:39,760
Speaker 1: handed to the state's first female premier and a Bligh.

298
00:18:40,840 --> 00:18:44,600
Speaker 1: The long awaited trial of doctor Patel would be overseen

299
00:18:44,720 --> 00:18:49,720
Speaker 1: by the Supreme Court's Justice John Byrne. He had vast experience,

300
00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:53,840
Speaker 1: having sat on the Court for two decades. He had

301
00:18:53,960 --> 00:18:57,439
Speaker 1: seen it all. He had heard gruesome evidence about some

302
00:18:57,520 --> 00:19:01,920
Speaker 1: of the state's worst murderers and rapers. But doctor Pateel

303
00:19:02,000 --> 00:19:07,560
Speaker 1: was neither. He was a highly educated surgeon, the sort

304
00:19:07,600 --> 00:19:10,880
Speaker 1: of professional justice Byrne might have expected to meet over

305
00:19:10,960 --> 00:19:14,639
Speaker 1: a gin and tonic in a private Brisbane club or

306
00:19:14,680 --> 00:19:19,560
Speaker 1: in the business lounge of an international airport. Our colleague

307
00:19:19,640 --> 00:19:23,200
Speaker 1: Sarah Elks recalls going down to cover the trial after

308
00:19:23,240 --> 00:19:26,080
Speaker 1: the years of build up as police worked behind the

309
00:19:26,119 --> 00:19:27,920
Speaker 1: scenes on the brief of evidence.

310
00:19:28,760 --> 00:19:32,359
Speaker 18: I was a really new journalist. I only started as

311
00:19:32,440 --> 00:19:35,679
Speaker 18: a journalist and at The Australian in two thousand and seven,

312
00:19:35,760 --> 00:19:38,120
Speaker 18: so this was just a few years after I had started.

313
00:19:38,680 --> 00:19:42,200
Speaker 18: It was definitely the first big trial I had ever covered.

314
00:19:43,400 --> 00:19:47,119
Speaker 1: Sarah in Brisbane shared her recollections with my camera based

315
00:19:47,200 --> 00:19:48,560
Speaker 1: colleague Karina Berger.

316
00:19:49,440 --> 00:19:52,960
Speaker 18: I found my notebook from when I was covering the

317
00:19:52,960 --> 00:19:57,040
Speaker 18: Patel trial. I've got handwritten notes of all of the

318
00:19:57,080 --> 00:20:01,879
Speaker 18: exchanges between witnesses and then here there, I've got observations

319
00:20:01,920 --> 00:20:03,800
Speaker 18: of what I saw in the court because I sat

320
00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:06,600
Speaker 18: in the courtroom most of the time rather than in

321
00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:11,760
Speaker 18: a media room. I've got that doctor Patel. That's Patel's wife,

322
00:20:11,800 --> 00:20:14,359
Speaker 18: who was also a doctor. She sat in the court

323
00:20:14,440 --> 00:20:17,800
Speaker 18: behind her husband. They were both taking notes, both in

324
00:20:17,880 --> 00:20:20,840
Speaker 18: black suits. I was able to go to every day

325
00:20:20,840 --> 00:20:24,080
Speaker 18: of the trial, so not only was I there when

326
00:20:24,119 --> 00:20:27,000
Speaker 18: the jury was there, but I was also there when

327
00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:30,280
Speaker 18: the jury wasn't there, which gave a lot of insight

328
00:20:30,480 --> 00:20:34,720
Speaker 18: into what eventually was to go wrong. The editor of

329
00:20:34,760 --> 00:20:38,400
Speaker 18: the newspaper at the time was Paul Whittaker. He said

330
00:20:38,440 --> 00:20:41,400
Speaker 18: to me, don't just think about what the jury hears.

331
00:20:41,800 --> 00:20:44,960
Speaker 18: Pay particular attention to what happens when the jury is

332
00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:47,080
Speaker 18: out of the room, because at the very end of

333
00:20:47,080 --> 00:20:49,760
Speaker 18: the Pateel trial, we want you to be able to

334
00:20:49,760 --> 00:20:53,760
Speaker 18: deliver a comprehensive piece about what the jury didn't hear.

335
00:20:55,240 --> 00:20:58,520
Speaker 19: Sarah, what was it like when the trial eventually got

336
00:20:58,600 --> 00:21:03,120
Speaker 19: underway after so many years of preparation and waiting, it

337
00:21:03,359 --> 00:21:08,240
Speaker 19: was certainly the focus of attention for the state's contingent

338
00:21:08,520 --> 00:21:13,400
Speaker 19: of court reporters, and more broadly, it was so keenly

339
00:21:13,440 --> 00:21:17,760
Speaker 19: watched by the medical profession the potential for a flow

340
00:21:17,800 --> 00:21:24,160
Speaker 19: on effect to the profession was extraordinary. They had one

341
00:21:24,160 --> 00:21:27,760
Speaker 19: of the most senior judges in the state presiding. Ross

342
00:21:27,800 --> 00:21:29,120
Speaker 19: Martin was the prosecutor.

343
00:21:29,400 --> 00:21:32,639
Speaker 18: He went on to become the head of the Crime

344
00:21:32,680 --> 00:21:37,800
Speaker 18: and Corruption Commission in Queensland. Michael Burn QC at the

345
00:21:37,840 --> 00:21:42,760
Speaker 18: time was one of the most senior defense barristers in Queensland.

346
00:21:43,280 --> 00:21:46,280
Speaker 18: It's quite tricky to hear a lot of this evidence,

347
00:21:46,359 --> 00:21:51,280
Speaker 18: not only because it's quite detailed and it might be

348
00:21:51,359 --> 00:21:56,640
Speaker 18: a little bit confronting, but also because the medical terminology

349
00:21:57,040 --> 00:22:01,000
Speaker 18: is pretty foreign to you if you're a reporter or

350
00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:04,240
Speaker 18: even a lawyer. I imagine we all got a bit

351
00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:09,240
Speaker 18: of a crash course in various kinds of aesophageal and

352
00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:12,080
Speaker 18: bow related surgeries.

353
00:22:13,280 --> 00:22:17,240
Speaker 1: The criminal charges against Patel arose out of the surgery

354
00:22:17,320 --> 00:22:20,840
Speaker 1: that he had performed on four patients while working as

355
00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:24,080
Speaker 1: a surgeon at the Bunderberg Base hospital. Between May two

356
00:22:24,080 --> 00:22:28,760
Speaker 1: thousand and three and December two thousand and four, Patel

357
00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:32,639
Speaker 1: was tried for the manslaughter of three of those patients.

358
00:22:33,359 --> 00:22:37,640
Speaker 1: Merwyn Morris died aged seventy five after Patel had removed

359
00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:42,840
Speaker 1: his sigmoid colon and attached a colostomy bag. James Phillips

360
00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:47,919
Speaker 1: forty six, died after an esophagectomy, and Jered Kemps died

361
00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:53,040
Speaker 1: after having an esophagectomy following a cancer diagnosis. He was

362
00:22:53,080 --> 00:22:58,320
Speaker 1: seventy seven. Pettel was also tried for unlawfully doing grievous

363
00:22:58,320 --> 00:23:02,399
Speaker 1: bodily harm to the fourth page in Vows who had

364
00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:07,600
Speaker 1: a history of cancer. When Vows was fifty seven, Hotel

365
00:23:07,680 --> 00:23:10,320
Speaker 1: removed his large vowel on the basis that he had

366
00:23:10,400 --> 00:23:15,480
Speaker 1: cancer again, but Vows did not have cancer. He survived

367
00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:20,120
Speaker 1: the surgery, but it significantly impacted his life. He required

368
00:23:20,160 --> 00:23:25,000
Speaker 1: a colosto be bag. The trial unpacked the details in

369
00:23:25,080 --> 00:23:28,840
Speaker 1: the cases of each of those four patients. In my

370
00:23:28,960 --> 00:23:32,600
Speaker 1: book and in this podcast series Sick to Death, you

371
00:23:32,680 --> 00:23:38,240
Speaker 1: heard a bit about those patients. Here's a reminder. Jerry

372
00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:41,919
Speaker 1: Kemps's abdomen needed to be opened to permit access to

373
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:47,400
Speaker 1: the esophagus. And the stomach. Suddenly, however, he became unstable

374
00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:51,840
Speaker 1: with plunging blood pressure and a rising pulse rate. The

375
00:23:51,880 --> 00:23:55,920
Speaker 1: heavy bleeding in the abdominal cavity was obvious to everyone.

376
00:23:56,600 --> 00:24:00,520
Speaker 1: Doctor Barons was worried. Apart from the blood loss, he

377
00:24:00,560 --> 00:24:03,719
Speaker 1: could see that the director of surgery lacked the skill

378
00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:08,600
Speaker 1: to be attempting such an operation. Petel's roughness around the

379
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:13,240
Speaker 1: heart and the vessels was all too obvious. Unless the

380
00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:18,520
Speaker 1: blood stopped flowing, Kemps would surely die. To the amazement

381
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:22,080
Speaker 1: of doctor Barons and the theater nurses, who were alarmed

382
00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:26,240
Speaker 1: by the obvious and heavy bleeding, Patel gave instructions for

383
00:24:26,359 --> 00:24:30,639
Speaker 1: Kemps to go to the ICU. From that moment, it

384
00:24:30,880 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 1: was inevitable that he would not survive. Patel operated on

385
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:39,679
Speaker 1: in vowels a cabinet maker who had a pollop in

386
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:43,800
Speaker 1: the lining of his bow. Instead of simply removing the

387
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:48,639
Speaker 1: fleshy growth, Patel opted for drastic action, removal of the

388
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:53,639
Speaker 1: entire bowel. Patel told him, your bowel does not like

389
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:55,360
Speaker 1: your body. We were a workadout.

390
00:24:56,200 --> 00:24:58,080
Speaker 5: I've done a lot of these operations before.

391
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:04,480
Speaker 1: You'll have no worries whatsoever. The operation was entirely unnecessary.

392
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:09,320
Speaker 1: The polyp was benign at the time Patel did the operation,

393
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 1: there was nothing to suggest it might develop into cancer.

394
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 1: There were serious post operative complications. His quality of life

395
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:24,480
Speaker 1: was never the same again. James Edward Phillips, forty six,

396
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:27,719
Speaker 1: signed his life away on ten May two thousand and

397
00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:32,120
Speaker 1: three next to a handwritten asterisk on a consent form.

398
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:37,520
Speaker 1: A soophagectomy an operation so complicated and risky it should

399
00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:41,760
Speaker 1: only be attempted at major hospitals by the most adept specialists,

400
00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 1: preferably gastro entrologists. The operations were also hopelessly outside the

401
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:54,080
Speaker 1: expertise of Patel. Major surgery would be extremely dangerous in

402
00:25:54,160 --> 00:25:58,480
Speaker 1: someone as ill as Phillips. For the last forty five

403
00:25:58,600 --> 00:26:02,240
Speaker 1: minutes of his operations, there was no recordable blood pressure.

404
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:06,800
Speaker 1: By mid afternoon, Dr Petell had put down his instruments

405
00:26:07,119 --> 00:26:10,359
Speaker 1: and Phillips was wheeled into the intensive care unit in

406
00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:16,040
Speaker 1: an extremely unstable condition. His pupils were fixed and dilated,

407
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:22,000
Speaker 1: indicating brain death. But while evidence to the public inquiry

408
00:26:22,160 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five touched on some of the

409
00:26:24,880 --> 00:26:29,120
Speaker 1: circumstances surrounding the surgery and the outcomes for those four

410
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:34,080
Speaker 1: patients and many others. It was a relatively light treatment

411
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:37,880
Speaker 1: compared with the details that were exposed in the criminal

412
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:42,640
Speaker 1: trial in twenty ten. Doctor Petell was fighting for his freedom,

413
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:48,439
Speaker 1: for his life. His defense became paramount. Unavoidably, the trial

414
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:52,760
Speaker 1: was a long and difficult process and grueling for many

415
00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:58,480
Speaker 1: of those involved. Some eighty witnesses gave evidence, but Patel

416
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:02,000
Speaker 1: did not get into the wind bitness box. He exercised

417
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 1: his right to silence as an accused person.

418
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:13,879
Speaker 15: We're going back in my mind sixteen years.

419
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:17,920
Speaker 16: Yes to the trialph A long time ago, wasn't it.

420
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:21,159
Speaker 16: I was fifty five and I'm now seventy. It was

421
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:24,000
Speaker 16: a surreal time. But I can still see myself in

422
00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:27,359
Speaker 16: the court. I can still see people up on the stand.

423
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:30,080
Speaker 16: I can still hear what the arguments were.

424
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:34,640
Speaker 1: You were hearing now from Beryl Crosby, her words and

425
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:39,280
Speaker 1: her voice. Beryl became a tireless advocate for the patients.

426
00:27:39,320 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 1: When the Patel scandal first erupted in two thousand and five,

427
00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:48,480
Speaker 1: The Bunderberg local was good at it. She was dedicated

428
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:52,840
Speaker 1: and fearless in taking on the bureaucrats and the health system,

429
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:55,720
Speaker 1: and twenty years later she still is.

430
00:27:56,280 --> 00:27:58,399
Speaker 15: I'm still going helping people.

431
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:03,959
Speaker 1: Beryl while on assignment in Bunderberg in April two thousand

432
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:07,159
Speaker 1: and five, when I was doing secret interviews with Tony

433
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 1: Hoffman and other nurses, just hours before the Google search

434
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:16,560
Speaker 1: revealed Patel's dark past. Beryl had been one of Patel's patients.

435
00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:21,199
Speaker 1: He had wrongly diagnosed her with cancer. You heard a

436
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:25,480
Speaker 1: voice actor for Beryl Crosby during early episodes of Sick

437
00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 1: to Death. I asked Beryl about Dr Patel's twenty ten

438
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 1: manslaughter trial. She had felt duty bound to be there

439
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:36,760
Speaker 1: on behalf of the patients, so.

440
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 16: I used to update the patients on what was happening

441
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:43,880
Speaker 16: every day. My role then was to see justice done.

442
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 16: That's what I wanted. Oh and every day it was

443
00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:50,800
Speaker 16: very intense, and I was listening to all the evidence

444
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:53,400
Speaker 16: as writing, all the things that came up for me

445
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:56,400
Speaker 16: during that draw got to say, I probably know how

446
00:28:56,400 --> 00:29:01,480
Speaker 16: to perform in a sophagectomy. The trial bought home how

447
00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:04,960
Speaker 16: he was allowed to get away with things for so long,

448
00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 16: and how people were frightened of speaking out against him.

449
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:14,640
Speaker 16: People said, we were frightened for our jobs. We had

450
00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 16: mortgages and we hid patients.

451
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:18,800
Speaker 15: It seems surreal.

452
00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 16: People sort of knew that he was operating on patience

453
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:28,040
Speaker 16: he shouldn't have operated on and they died, but he

454
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:31,440
Speaker 16: kept going because the hierarchy allowed him to.

455
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 5: That stuck with me quite a lot.

456
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 1: Did you talk to doctor Contell?

457
00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 16: No, But I talked to his wife. I always had

458
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:43,120
Speaker 16: peppermints on me in the courtroom, and she would turn

459
00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 16: around and take a peppermint off me every day. Hearing

460
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:50,880
Speaker 16: all the evidence herself, I think was pretty harrowing for

461
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 16: her too. But I think their culture as you stand

462
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 16: by your husband no matter what. I did feel sorry

463
00:29:57,640 --> 00:30:00,840
Speaker 16: for having to sit there and hear what her husband

464
00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:03,800
Speaker 16: had done. That was really hard. And when they talked

465
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 16: about he bled out on the floor. There was blood everywhere.

466
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:11,600
Speaker 16: It was pretty hard to listen to. She was nice

467
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 16: and she hugged Judy Camps. It was very sad. People

468
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:18,760
Speaker 16: used to say to me, you must hate him. I

469
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 16: never felt anything heady. I never felt anything for that man.

470
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 16: I didn't go in they're angry. I went in there

471
00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:29,640
Speaker 16: with a purpose, and that was to see justice done.

472
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:32,040
Speaker 15: He was the person.

473
00:30:31,680 --> 00:30:35,360
Speaker 16: That we needed to help the patients get justice.

474
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 1: What do you reckon? Your confidence level was about a conviction.

475
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:42,360
Speaker 1: As you listened to the evidence and watched the witnesses

476
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 1: giving guts.

477
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 5: I was convinced that he would be convicted.

478
00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 1: Tony Hoffman was on tender hooks before the start of

479
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:55,440
Speaker 1: the trial. She was a key Crown witness. It had

480
00:30:55,520 --> 00:30:59,840
Speaker 1: been five years since she last saw doctor Patel. So

481
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:03,280
Speaker 1: much water had flowed under the bridge since. The nurse

482
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 1: risked her own career to talk to a journalist and

483
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:10,200
Speaker 1: a member of Parliament in early two thousand and five

484
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:15,360
Speaker 1: about her concerns over deaths and injuries. Was it important

485
00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:20,760
Speaker 1: to you, Tony, that he be prosecuted and convicted or

486
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 1: were you happy for him just a faith trial.

487
00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 4: It was important for me that he be prosecuted and

488
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:31,880
Speaker 4: convicted and that he was punished. But the most important

489
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 4: thing for me was that he wouldn't be able to

490
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:42,760
Speaker 4: practice medicine any more. I knew how bad he actually was.

491
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 4: What he did was actually so horrendous and it just

492
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:51,720
Speaker 4: completely flawed me.

493
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 1: For the trial, court officials set up a live link

494
00:31:56,360 --> 00:32:00,400
Speaker 1: between the Brisbane Supreme Court and the Bunderberg Court out Us.

495
00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:05,840
Speaker 1: Here's a report from ABC radio's PM program at that time.

496
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 14: For the first time in Australian legal history, a major

497
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 14: trial is to be televised four hours north of the

498
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 14: Queensland capital. His former patients and anyone who can squeeze

499
00:32:16,320 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 14: into the Bunderberg courthouse will be able to watch a

500
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:20,800
Speaker 14: live telecast of the trial.

501
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: With this link. Staff from the local hospital could be

502
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:28,520
Speaker 1: sworn in to give evidence from Bunderberg instead of having

503
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 1: to travel to Brisbane, and members of the community could

504
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:35,560
Speaker 1: come in to see and hear the proceedings beamed from

505
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:39,600
Speaker 1: Brisbane onto the screen in Bunderberg, but as a witness,

506
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 1: Tony was not permitted to follow any of that evidence

507
00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 1: until she had finished giving her own evidence.

508
00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 4: Most of the nurses did do it via video link,

509
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 4: but you couldn't see very well, and the prosecutor, David Meredith,

510
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:58,680
Speaker 4: I didn't recognize him in his robes, so I asked,

511
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:03,600
Speaker 4: could I please give my evidence in Brisbane? I didn't

512
00:33:03,640 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 4: want to give it from Bunderberg, so I went down

513
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:07,480
Speaker 4: to give it.

514
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:13,320
Speaker 1: Two Crown prosecutors were in the original trial. Ross Martin

515
00:33:13,600 --> 00:33:16,640
Speaker 1: was the senior counsel and he was assisted by another

516
00:33:16,680 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 1: Crown prosecutor, David Meredith. Were you scared, Oh?

517
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 5: I was terrified, absolutely terrified.

518
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:29,040
Speaker 4: And I guess terrified because of the unknown.

519
00:33:30,280 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 5: I remember having a.

520
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 4: Really good look at the jury when I walked in,

521
00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 4: but you don't know what the jury is going to think.

522
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:41,320
Speaker 4: The things I remember about this are really strange. Head

523
00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:43,880
Speaker 4: there was a man sitting at the back with a

524
00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:47,959
Speaker 4: paper bag on his head. Why I don't know, but

525
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:50,719
Speaker 4: like nobody challenged him or anything. They just let him

526
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 4: sit there with the bag over his head. And then

527
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 4: when I was called to give evidence, I got into

528
00:33:56,320 --> 00:33:59,440
Speaker 4: trouble within the first five minutes from the judge and

529
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:02,840
Speaker 4: got told they were trying to get me to say

530
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:06,200
Speaker 4: that Peter Lack I think it was Peter Leck or

531
00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:10,760
Speaker 4: Darren Keating one of them didn't know about the Clinical

532
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:15,759
Speaker 4: Services Capability Framework, which is the document that says what

533
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:20,280
Speaker 4: the hospital's capable of doing. And I said to them,

534
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 4: to the defense, I'm not going to answer that question.

535
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:26,720
Speaker 4: And the judge, Judge Byrne, said to me, miss Hoffman,

536
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:31,520
Speaker 4: I will decide what questions are answered in my courtroom,

537
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:34,720
Speaker 4: and he scared me so much I had.

538
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:35,640
Speaker 5: To answer the question.

539
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 4: But I still couldn't answer the question because, as far

540
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:43,040
Speaker 4: as I'm concerned, if you're the district manager or the

541
00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:47,680
Speaker 4: Director of Medical Services. You should have been very familiar

542
00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:50,400
Speaker 4: with the clinical services capability framework.

543
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:53,759
Speaker 1: And did you see doctor Bateel, Yes.

544
00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:57,439
Speaker 4: Yeah, I saw him sitting there just before I went

545
00:34:57,480 --> 00:35:01,840
Speaker 4: in to give evidence. I remember sitting outside with the

546
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:09,160
Speaker 4: police and I saw him walking with his solicitor through

547
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:14,760
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court and I just remember taking my breath

548
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 4: away because that was obviously the first time i'd seen

549
00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:21,600
Speaker 4: him in the flesh since he'd been in Bunderberg.

550
00:35:22,120 --> 00:35:23,160
Speaker 1: Did he acknowledge you?

551
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:24,880
Speaker 5: No?

552
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:29,319
Speaker 1: No, Did you ever feel that he just wanted it

553
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 1: to end and he felt sorry for him?

554
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:37,480
Speaker 5: Or no? I never felt sorry for him at all.

555
00:35:37,560 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 1: The death of James Phillips was one of three fatalities

556
00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 1: which prosecutors alleged was caused by Junt Patel's negligence. Tony

557
00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:48,200
Speaker 1: Hoffman agreed.

558
00:35:48,640 --> 00:35:52,320
Speaker 4: I remember mister Phillips because he was the first patient

559
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:56,120
Speaker 4: that came in that I put the first complaint in about.

560
00:35:56,680 --> 00:35:58,759
Speaker 4: He was only forty six years old, but he had

561
00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:02,560
Speaker 4: a lot of medical problems. He was on dialysis, and

562
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:06,640
Speaker 4: we had staffed the icu is extra nurses for that

563
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:10,560
Speaker 4: shift for when he'd be coming back from theater because

564
00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:13,239
Speaker 4: it was such a big surgery to be being done

565
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:17,319
Speaker 4: in Bundenberg, plus he would be requiring dialysis when he

566
00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:22,720
Speaker 4: came back. And he came back to ICU after having

567
00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:27,680
Speaker 4: no recordable blood pressure in theater for the previous twenty minutes.

568
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:32,799
Speaker 4: He was actually brain dead and Dr Purtel was describing

569
00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:34,080
Speaker 4: him as being stable.

570
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:39,080
Speaker 1: Do you recall why they didn't have many more or

571
00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:41,440
Speaker 1: were you told that we only need these ones, we

572
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:42,840
Speaker 1: don't have to do every case.

573
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:47,439
Speaker 4: I was told that they chose the patients that they

574
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:51,799
Speaker 4: thought they would have the best chance of getting a

575
00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 4: conviction for. I know that mister Johnson, who was one

576
00:36:56,719 --> 00:37:01,359
Speaker 4: of the first patients that died after having WHIPPLES procedure done,

577
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:06,200
Speaker 4: who ended up not having pancreated cancer, but dying from

578
00:37:06,239 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 4: the surgery, he had been buried. Obviously, I don't know

579
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:15,759
Speaker 4: the reasoning why they chose the patients they.

580
00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:18,520
Speaker 1: Are you suggesting, Tony that mister Johnson would have been

581
00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:21,400
Speaker 1: a very good case to go with.

582
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:26,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, mister Johnson was one because he died so unnecessarily

583
00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:31,520
Speaker 4: because Patel didn't do things like any staging cts or

584
00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:36,400
Speaker 4: biopsies or anything like that. He just made a decision

585
00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:42,279
Speaker 4: and went straight to surgery and mister Johnson. I think

586
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:45,600
Speaker 4: he was only fifty six, he'd only just retired.

587
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:49,839
Speaker 1: Mister Johnson didn't actually have cancer, but he had been

588
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 1: diagnosed with cancer, and Patel had operated on him as

589
00:37:53,640 --> 00:37:57,360
Speaker 1: if he had cancer. But the surgery that wasn't necessary

590
00:37:57,400 --> 00:37:58,560
Speaker 1: in the first place killed him.

591
00:37:58,640 --> 00:37:59,920
Speaker 5: Yes, that's correct.

592
00:38:01,280 --> 00:38:03,960
Speaker 1: And do you recall why he wasn't one of the

593
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 1: manslaughter cases.

594
00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:10,759
Speaker 4: No, we were told absolutely only what was totally necessary

595
00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:14,040
Speaker 4: to be told. I would love to have asked them

596
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:16,759
Speaker 4: there were some other things that I would have liked

597
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:22,160
Speaker 4: to have focused on or understood better as well.

598
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:25,719
Speaker 1: Are you talking about the police detectives or the prosecutors

599
00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:31,520
Speaker 1: or both both. My colleague, the former lawyer Karina Berger,

600
00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:36,080
Speaker 1: has been looking closely at the different legal cases involving Patel.

601
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:40,560
Speaker 1: I asked her to explain in laypersons terms what the

602
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:43,800
Speaker 1: prosecution was arguing in this remarkable case.

603
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 19: The prosecution's case at the trial was based on Patel

604
00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:52,120
Speaker 19: preaching or not complying with a section of the Queensland

605
00:38:52,200 --> 00:38:56,400
Speaker 19: Criminal Code Section two hundred and eighty eight. This section

606
00:38:56,520 --> 00:39:00,279
Speaker 19: creates a legal duty for people performing dangerous acts in

607
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:04,440
Speaker 19: particular medical or surgical treatments and that's why this section

608
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:09,200
Speaker 19: was relevant to Dr Patel as a surgeon. The duty

609
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:13,360
Speaker 19: requires the person so here doctor Patel, to have reasonable

610
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:18,160
Speaker 19: skill and to use reasonable care in administering treatment. In

611
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:21,879
Speaker 19: Patel's trial, the prosecution argued that the standard of care

612
00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:25,520
Speaker 19: he provided to the four patients was so low that

613
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:29,200
Speaker 19: he had breached that criminal duty, and if the prosecution

614
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:32,800
Speaker 19: was correct about that, then Section two hundred and eighty

615
00:39:32,840 --> 00:39:37,279
Speaker 19: eight deemed Patel criminally responsible for any consequences to the

616
00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:39,080
Speaker 19: life or health of any person.

617
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:42,880
Speaker 1: When we talk about the Queensland Criminal Code, that's just

618
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:47,359
Speaker 1: the title for the law of the State of Queensland,

619
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:47,759
Speaker 1: isn't it.

620
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:49,520
Speaker 15: Yeah, that's right, Headley.

621
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:53,640
Speaker 19: The Criminal Code is Queensland's main criminal law and it

622
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:56,360
Speaker 19: set out in a schedule to a Queensland Act.

623
00:39:56,960 --> 00:39:58,239
Speaker 5: It's really common.

624
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 19: For doctors to be sued for negligence since Sevil cases,

625
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:04,080
Speaker 19: and we will all have heard about those types of cases.

626
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:07,799
Speaker 19: But the difference in the Patel trial was that he

627
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:11,920
Speaker 19: was being prosecuted for criminal medical negligence and the court

628
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:14,399
Speaker 19: heard in his trial that no one had ever been

629
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:19,200
Speaker 19: successfully prosecuted in Queensland under that section of the Criminal

630
00:40:19,239 --> 00:40:19,920
Speaker 19: Code before.

631
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:22,000
Speaker 5: Because the charges.

632
00:40:21,680 --> 00:40:24,880
Speaker 19: Against him were criminal charges, they had to be proven

633
00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:29,520
Speaker 19: to the criminal standard beyond reasonable doubt. The key issue

634
00:40:29,560 --> 00:40:32,280
Speaker 19: to be determined at the trial was where the Patel's

635
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:36,480
Speaker 19: conduct was so far below the objective or reasonable standard

636
00:40:36,640 --> 00:40:40,800
Speaker 19: expected of a reasonably competent surgeon that Patel had committed

637
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:44,400
Speaker 19: gross or criminal negligence and should be punished as a criminal.

638
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:49,839
Speaker 1: Initially, the prosecution alleged that he had been generally incompetent

639
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 1: and grossly negligent in three respects, firstly in recommending the

640
00:40:55,239 --> 00:40:58,880
Speaker 1: surgical procedures, then in the manner in which he carried

641
00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:04,520
Speaker 1: them out, and finally in what was called the postoperative

642
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:09,040
Speaker 1: treatment which he supervised. But as the trial progressed, it

643
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:14,799
Speaker 1: became obvious that the evidence showed the surgeries had apparently

644
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:19,239
Speaker 1: been performed competently enough, as the trial judge put it,

645
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:21,200
Speaker 1: which must have been a bit of a head scratch

646
00:41:21,239 --> 00:41:25,759
Speaker 1: for everybody who had followed events and read about Patel's

647
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:30,160
Speaker 1: past appalling surgery in the US as well.

648
00:41:30,239 --> 00:41:33,080
Speaker 19: It must have come as a surprise to everyone who'd

649
00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:36,200
Speaker 19: sat through and read about the evidence from the public

650
00:41:36,239 --> 00:41:40,239
Speaker 19: inquiry and the testimony of the surgical experts in that inquiry,

651
00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:43,719
Speaker 19: Like doctor de Lacey. Here's a reminder of what he

652
00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:45,160
Speaker 19: said during the inquiry.

653
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:48,680
Speaker 20: One of the points that I'd like to make if

654
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:51,400
Speaker 20: I could, was that I'm not certain that the magnitude

655
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:54,440
Speaker 20: of his errors, the number of problems that he's had,

656
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:57,520
Speaker 20: the number of death thaties had, has ever been sort

657
00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:00,359
Speaker 20: of appropriately compared to what we might have expected him

658
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:03,480
Speaker 20: to have. They're not ten times what you might expect.

659
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:05,800
Speaker 20: They're more like a hundred times what you might expect.

660
00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:09,279
Speaker 20: I've looked after complications in the last four months that

661
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:12,480
Speaker 20: I've never seen before. I've had an opportunity to sort

662
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:18,040
Speaker 20: of assess his decision making, both preoperatively, interoperatively and postoperatively,

663
00:42:18,239 --> 00:42:21,080
Speaker 20: and it was terrible. My opinion now is that the

664
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:23,200
Speaker 20: real story of what was going on there was worse.

665
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:26,360
Speaker 20: That the number of patients was ten to one hundred

666
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:28,400
Speaker 20: times more than I thought there would be, and that

667
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:31,240
Speaker 20: the type of complications that were allowed to happen there

668
00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:34,520
Speaker 20: were gross by comparison to what I was expecting. There

669
00:42:34,560 --> 00:42:37,359
Speaker 20: must have been somebody dying on the surgical ward all

670
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:40,480
Speaker 20: of the time, and there must have been horrendous complications

671
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:43,600
Speaker 20: physically being managed on the surgical ward all of the time.

672
00:42:45,280 --> 00:42:48,239
Speaker 19: The way the evidence came out in Patel's trial presented

673
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:52,480
Speaker 19: a major problem though, because the expert evidence suggested that

674
00:42:52,560 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 19: at least three of the four operations were performed with

675
00:42:55,680 --> 00:42:59,839
Speaker 19: reasonable care and skill. This meant that Patel would not

676
00:42:59,880 --> 00:43:04,120
Speaker 19: have breached the duty he owed to the required criminal standard.

677
00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:09,040
Speaker 1: Our colleague Sarah Elks, who covered the long trial, shared

678
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:13,280
Speaker 1: interesting insights into the expert evidence when Karina spoke to.

679
00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:18,560
Speaker 18: Her, Patel's legal counsel were really skilled. Every time they

680
00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:20,680
Speaker 18: got a witness in the witness box and they were

681
00:43:20,719 --> 00:43:25,600
Speaker 18: doing their cross examination of particularly experts, they would get

682
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:29,560
Speaker 18: these expert doctors in who had just before told the

683
00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:34,080
Speaker 18: prosecution that this surgery was done incompetently, should never have

684
00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:37,839
Speaker 18: been done at all. Patel was well below the standards.

685
00:43:37,880 --> 00:43:42,480
Speaker 18: But Patel's lawyer, very senior barrister at that time, Michael Byrne,

686
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:45,640
Speaker 18: what he did was break down every step to the

687
00:43:45,640 --> 00:43:51,120
Speaker 18: most granular detail of Patel's decision making from the moment

688
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:54,279
Speaker 18: that he saw the patient. The witnesses found it very

689
00:43:54,280 --> 00:43:59,400
Speaker 18: difficult to not agree that each tiny step was reasonable.

690
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:03,280
Speaker 18: Might have said that they wouldn't have done the same

691
00:44:03,280 --> 00:44:07,960
Speaker 18: thing in the situation, but overwhelmingly they said, yes, that

692
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:10,359
Speaker 18: was a reasonable decision for Patel to make.

693
00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:12,760
Speaker 1: Here's Karina again.

694
00:44:13,920 --> 00:44:16,319
Speaker 19: And so because of the way the evidence came out

695
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:19,319
Speaker 19: in the trial, the prosecution just wasn't going to be

696
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:23,600
Speaker 19: able to prove some aspects of its case. And to

697
00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:30,120
Speaker 19: respond to this major conundrum, the prosecution changed course significantly

698
00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:33,880
Speaker 19: on day forty three of the trial and substantially narrowed

699
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:38,120
Speaker 19: its case. The focus of the new narrowed prosecution case

700
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:42,120
Speaker 19: was on whether each surgical procedure should have been undertaken

701
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:45,880
Speaker 19: in the first place, rather than on the way that

702
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:47,600
Speaker 19: the surgery had been conducted.

703
00:44:48,520 --> 00:44:52,840
Speaker 21: So it's this point that the senior prosecutor from the

704
00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:58,520
Speaker 21: Queensland Office of the DPP fundamentally alters the prosecution strategy.

705
00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 1: Is it a bit like by moving the goalpost during

706
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:02,720
Speaker 1: the game?

707
00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 19: Yes, you can definitely look at it like that, Headley.

708
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:11,920
Speaker 19: The prosecution significantly narrowed its attack on Patel, and listeners

709
00:45:11,920 --> 00:45:15,000
Speaker 19: won't be surprised to hear that. The next day, day

710
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:18,400
Speaker 19: forty four of the trial, the defense made an application

711
00:45:18,600 --> 00:45:21,719
Speaker 19: to discharge the jury on the ground that Patel could

712
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 19: not secure a fair trial. The defense team, led by

713
00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 19: Barrister Michael Byrne unsuccessfully argued that a lot of the

714
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:34,160
Speaker 19: evidence put forward to try to prove the prosecution's original

715
00:45:34,280 --> 00:45:38,919
Speaker 19: wider case was prejudicial to Patel and was now irrelevant

716
00:45:39,040 --> 00:45:40,920
Speaker 19: on the prosecution's narrowed case.

717
00:45:41,640 --> 00:45:44,520
Speaker 1: Well, it's sounding like a train wreck at this point.

718
00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:47,240
Speaker 19: Yeah, you definitely wouldn't want to be in the prosecution's

719
00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:50,880
Speaker 19: hues at this point in the trial. The other really

720
00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:54,000
Speaker 19: interesting thing was that at various times during the trial,

721
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:58,200
Speaker 19: the trial judge Justice Byrne and the defense counsel Michael

722
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:03,000
Speaker 19: Byrne described the prosecut's case as a mudslinging exercise in

723
00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:05,840
Speaker 19: which every little piece of mud was thrown at Patel

724
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 19: in the hope that some would stick. When he summed

725
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:12,560
Speaker 19: up to the jury, Justice Byrne described the allegations about

726
00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:14,160
Speaker 19: the four operations like this.

727
00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:20,880
Speaker 13: The prosecution contends that the operations were unnecessary or inappropriate.

728
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 13: Removal of mister Morris's sigmoid colon is said to have

729
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:30,960
Speaker 13: been inappropriate, mainly because the bleeding problem that the surgery

730
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:35,360
Speaker 13: was to address was sourced in his rectum. The surgery

731
00:46:35,360 --> 00:46:38,640
Speaker 13: on mister Vows is said to have been inappropriate because,

732
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 13: contrary to what the accused supposed mister Vows did not

733
00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:49,200
Speaker 13: then have colon cancer. With both mister Phillips and mister Kemp's,

734
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:53,520
Speaker 13: the primary contention is that the patient's health was too

735
00:46:53,560 --> 00:46:57,120
Speaker 13: precarious for an esophagectomy.

736
00:46:57,640 --> 00:46:59,280
Speaker 1: Here's Beryl Crosby again.

737
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:02,720
Speaker 16: There was many setbacks through that trial where they argued

738
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:05,840
Speaker 16: points of law, and that's when I started to panic.

739
00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:07,640
Speaker 15: It was all getting very messy.

740
00:47:08,400 --> 00:47:10,520
Speaker 16: But they didn't take in the fact that he wasn't

741
00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 16: supposed to do it anywhere. They'd argue the medical case

742
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:17,759
Speaker 16: rather than the fact that he was struck off from

743
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:18,279
Speaker 16: doing it.

744
00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:24,680
Speaker 1: Here Beryl is referring to Petel dishonestly obtaining registration to

745
00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:28,680
Speaker 1: practice as a doctor in Queensland. You'll recall that he

746
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:32,680
Speaker 1: was banned from performing certain surgeries in the United States.

747
00:47:33,719 --> 00:47:35,480
Speaker 1: Tony Hoffman put it this way.

748
00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:39,720
Speaker 4: There were things that weren't focused on like I thought

749
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:41,359
Speaker 4: they should have been focused on.

750
00:47:41,920 --> 00:47:43,279
Speaker 1: You mean during the prosecution.

751
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:48,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, during the prosecution he was gaining consent from patients

752
00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:52,600
Speaker 4: to do the surgery. That consent was not valid. How

753
00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:55,920
Speaker 4: could that have been a valid consent when he was

754
00:47:56,000 --> 00:48:01,440
Speaker 4: asking people to consent to surgery under force pretensive.

755
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:04,640
Speaker 1: Beryl Crosby made a similar point.

756
00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:07,200
Speaker 16: It used to frustrate me because I wanted to yell

757
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:09,600
Speaker 16: like yes, but he wasn't supposed to touch them anyway.

758
00:48:10,080 --> 00:48:11,959
Speaker 15: It came back to that for me all the time.

759
00:48:12,000 --> 00:48:14,640
Speaker 16: He wasn't supposed to do it, like even with Jerry

760
00:48:14,719 --> 00:48:20,240
Speaker 16: Kenser's case, Like Jerry and Judy wanted that operation because

761
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:22,800
Speaker 16: they thought it would be a better quality of life. Frind,

762
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:25,839
Speaker 16: but he should never have been operated on by anybody.

763
00:48:26,640 --> 00:48:30,080
Speaker 16: Of course he would have lasted longer if he hadn't

764
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:33,640
Speaker 16: had that operation. But but tell it convinced them that

765
00:48:33,719 --> 00:48:35,760
Speaker 16: he could do it, and of course he didn't.

766
00:48:36,160 --> 00:48:40,799
Speaker 1: From watching the trial, yeah, well sort of a picture

767
00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:45,560
Speaker 1: did you see being painted of doctor Patel?

768
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:49,759
Speaker 16: I really did see a bad picture painted of him.

769
00:48:49,920 --> 00:48:53,759
Speaker 16: It was both because then you'd get some doctor up

770
00:48:53,760 --> 00:48:58,440
Speaker 16: there that would defend his skill, someone that had come

771
00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:01,760
Speaker 16: in and say it's feasible that this would happen.

772
00:49:03,040 --> 00:49:06,920
Speaker 1: While Beryl was dedicating long days to the trial in Brisbane,

773
00:49:07,160 --> 00:49:10,279
Speaker 1: her father was in hospital in Bunderberg.

774
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:14,279
Speaker 16: The last few weeks were harrying for me as I

775
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:17,719
Speaker 16: was worried about my dad and he was dying, and

776
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:20,040
Speaker 16: he said you go get them, you get him love.

777
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 16: You need to see it through. Because my dad wanted

778
00:49:23,719 --> 00:49:26,440
Speaker 16: me to go down to the trial. I was on

779
00:49:26,480 --> 00:49:29,760
Speaker 16: the train on the way home and my dad died.

780
00:49:29,840 --> 00:49:33,760
Speaker 16: I never made it back. I knew that he wanted

781
00:49:33,800 --> 00:49:36,480
Speaker 16: me to be there and he told me to go,

782
00:49:37,360 --> 00:49:39,600
Speaker 16: but it was hard for me because I lost my dad.

783
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:41,000
Speaker 16: At the same time.

784
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:09,080
Speaker 1: As the trial came to a conclusion, you were watching

785
00:50:09,120 --> 00:50:12,839
Speaker 1: it from Bunderberg. You were trying to understand as much

786
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:16,560
Speaker 1: as possible about what was happening. Did you have a

787
00:50:16,719 --> 00:50:18,480
Speaker 1: sense about how it was going.

788
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:20,400
Speaker 5: You just don't know.

789
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:25,560
Speaker 4: So many times we watched and listen to things that

790
00:50:25,680 --> 00:50:29,399
Speaker 4: seemed so obvious to us, that someone has murdered someone

791
00:50:29,560 --> 00:50:32,960
Speaker 4: or killed someone, or done something that they shouldn't and

792
00:50:33,000 --> 00:50:36,240
Speaker 4: then they get off that you just didn't know because

793
00:50:36,280 --> 00:50:40,520
Speaker 4: we waited ages for the decision to come back. I

794
00:50:40,560 --> 00:50:42,680
Speaker 4: think it was about five days or something. It was

795
00:50:42,719 --> 00:50:46,840
Speaker 4: a really long time, and my heart was beating so

796
00:50:47,040 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 4: fast for the whole time. And I got home and

797
00:50:50,040 --> 00:50:53,400
Speaker 4: it was about six o'clock and it flashed on the TV.

798
00:50:57,280 --> 00:51:00,000
Speaker 22: Surgeon dry and Patel has been found guilty of unlock

799
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:03,920
Speaker 22: tefully killing three patients at Bunderberg Hospital and causing grievous

800
00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:05,200
Speaker 22: bodily harm to a force.

801
00:51:06,200 --> 00:51:08,960
Speaker 4: And I was just sitting down to have something to

802
00:51:09,080 --> 00:51:13,319
Speaker 4: eat and Rob Messinger phoned me and said where are you?

803
00:51:13,360 --> 00:51:14,720
Speaker 5: And I said, I'm at home.

804
00:51:15,040 --> 00:51:20,320
Speaker 4: And for some reason, even though the courthouse was closed

805
00:51:20,320 --> 00:51:25,359
Speaker 4: and everything, people had gravitated towards the courthouse, and I said,

806
00:51:25,400 --> 00:51:27,400
Speaker 4: I'm on my way down to the courthouse now. And

807
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:30,600
Speaker 4: I went down to the courthouse. There was some media there,

808
00:51:30,840 --> 00:51:34,920
Speaker 4: and there was some patients there, and Vicki from the

809
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:37,640
Speaker 4: Nurses Union was there, and Rob Messenger was there.

810
00:51:37,680 --> 00:51:39,960
Speaker 5: So everybody was really.

811
00:51:39,719 --> 00:51:43,680
Speaker 4: Happy and relieved that he had been found guilty on

812
00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:44,920
Speaker 4: both charges.

813
00:51:46,280 --> 00:51:50,440
Speaker 1: In late June twenty ten, the jury found Jayant Patel

814
00:51:50,560 --> 00:51:55,160
Speaker 1: guilty of the manslaughter of Morris Phillips and Kemp's and

815
00:51:55,360 --> 00:51:59,720
Speaker 1: of unlawfully doing grievous bodily harm to vows. The former

816
00:52:00,080 --> 00:52:03,400
Speaker 1: urgon was convicted in each case on the basis that

817
00:52:03,520 --> 00:52:09,160
Speaker 1: his decision to operate was criminal. Here's Karina with Sarah again.

818
00:52:10,160 --> 00:52:13,760
Speaker 19: You wrote this amazing article which I think you described

819
00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:17,080
Speaker 19: yourself as behind the scenes court drama, and it really

820
00:52:17,239 --> 00:52:20,160
Speaker 19: was just like you were a fly on the wall

821
00:52:20,920 --> 00:52:24,160
Speaker 19: providing all of that intelligence that the general public and

822
00:52:24,200 --> 00:52:26,560
Speaker 19: the jury you just didn't know about until you could

823
00:52:26,600 --> 00:52:27,279
Speaker 19: write about it.

824
00:52:28,040 --> 00:52:32,000
Speaker 1: Here's Sarah Elks again sharing a few sentences from her

825
00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:36,120
Speaker 1: analysis piece, the one made possible because her then editor

826
00:52:36,200 --> 00:52:39,520
Speaker 1: Paul Whittaker asked her to take notes on the whole case,

827
00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:43,640
Speaker 1: including the vigorous legal arguments that ensued when the judge

828
00:52:43,640 --> 00:52:45,799
Speaker 1: had told jurors to leave the court room.

829
00:52:47,000 --> 00:52:50,640
Speaker 18: From day one of the trial, Judge John Byrne highlighted

830
00:52:50,719 --> 00:52:54,800
Speaker 18: a possible flaw in the prosecution's case against the surgeon,

831
00:52:55,440 --> 00:53:00,520
Speaker 18: the issue of consent, much to Justice Burn's expressed frustration,

832
00:53:00,920 --> 00:53:03,799
Speaker 18: the history making trial just sailed on.

833
00:53:05,040 --> 00:53:08,600
Speaker 1: Another problem identified by the judge was at the heart

834
00:53:08,640 --> 00:53:12,480
Speaker 1: of the surgery. As Sarah Elks wrote in The Australian

835
00:53:12,680 --> 00:53:13,880
Speaker 1: in twenty ten.

836
00:53:14,360 --> 00:53:18,840
Speaker 18: The evidence wasn't falling exactly as prosecutors expected. Instead of

837
00:53:18,880 --> 00:53:22,600
Speaker 18: the experts criticizing the way Patel performed in the operating

838
00:53:22,680 --> 00:53:27,240
Speaker 18: room during surgery, many said he had performed competently. Most

839
00:53:27,280 --> 00:53:31,080
Speaker 18: were agreeing the surgeries should not have been performed at all.

840
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:35,880
Speaker 18: Could a surgeon be held criminally responsible for wrongly deciding

841
00:53:35,880 --> 00:53:39,040
Speaker 18: to operate on a patient who consented to the operation

842
00:53:39,360 --> 00:53:42,640
Speaker 18: but later died. The future of the trial was hanging

843
00:53:42,680 --> 00:53:45,960
Speaker 18: by the slightest of threads, with the jury and the

844
00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:50,600
Speaker 18: general public none the wiser. Eventually, Justice Byrne decided the

845
00:53:50,600 --> 00:53:54,560
Speaker 18: trial should continue. He acknowledged that discharging the jury would

846
00:53:54,600 --> 00:53:57,960
Speaker 18: be extraordinary and that was not needed to secure a

847
00:53:57,960 --> 00:54:01,839
Speaker 18: fair trial. But the saga is not over yet. Now

848
00:54:01,840 --> 00:54:05,280
Speaker 18: that Betel has been convicted, his legal team is trying

849
00:54:05,320 --> 00:54:08,080
Speaker 18: to take the fight to the Court of Appeal for

850
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:11,880
Speaker 18: a ruling on the correct statutory route to convict a

851
00:54:11,920 --> 00:54:15,600
Speaker 18: surgeon of manslaughterer. The trial may be over, but the

852
00:54:15,640 --> 00:54:18,480
Speaker 18: minefield that is the law governing the states and the

853
00:54:18,560 --> 00:54:21,719
Speaker 18: nation's doctors is just beginning to be revealed.

854
00:54:23,080 --> 00:54:26,360
Speaker 22: He'll be sentenced on Thursday, although his legal team's considering

855
00:54:26,400 --> 00:54:26,920
Speaker 22: an appeal.

856
00:54:28,080 --> 00:54:32,040
Speaker 1: ABC journalist Lee Sales broadcast the breaking news.

857
00:54:32,680 --> 00:54:34,840
Speaker 22: The Supreme Court trial has been one of the longest

858
00:54:34,840 --> 00:54:38,160
Speaker 22: in Queensland's history, and former patient sat to Night's verdict

859
00:54:38,160 --> 00:54:40,880
Speaker 22: can bring closure to a dark chapter in their lives.

860
00:54:41,280 --> 00:54:43,360
Speaker 22: From Bunderberg, Karen mckeckney.

861
00:54:42,920 --> 00:54:46,880
Speaker 9: Reports the gasps went out across the court room in

862
00:54:46,960 --> 00:54:51,359
Speaker 9: Bunderberg as former patients watched the verdict on a live telecast.

863
00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:54,920
Speaker 9: After six and a half days of deliberation, the jury

864
00:54:54,960 --> 00:54:58,560
Speaker 9: decided Jane Bettel was guilty of three counts of manslaughter

865
00:54:58,920 --> 00:55:02,360
Speaker 9: after three patients died in his care. Patel was also

866
00:55:02,400 --> 00:55:06,799
Speaker 9: found guilty of grievous bodily harm. His victim Ian vows

867
00:55:06,840 --> 00:55:09,440
Speaker 9: silently wet as the verdict was delivered.

868
00:55:09,600 --> 00:55:10,880
Speaker 1: Oh Jess Gama's light.

869
00:55:11,000 --> 00:55:12,680
Speaker 7: Now you can take the worry of it out of.

870
00:55:12,640 --> 00:55:16,719
Speaker 1: My mind yet. The ABC seven point thirty report presenter

871
00:55:16,880 --> 00:55:21,040
Speaker 1: Kerry O'Brien crossed to reporter John Taylor, who was standing

872
00:55:21,120 --> 00:55:23,560
Speaker 1: outside the Supreme Court in Brisbane.

873
00:55:24,239 --> 00:55:26,399
Speaker 23: What sort of sentence does he now face?

874
00:55:27,280 --> 00:55:28,800
Speaker 1: He faces life in jail.

875
00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:32,400
Speaker 2: I mean he's gone from high calling a surgeon to

876
00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:36,240
Speaker 2: a convicted criminal. This is unprecedented in coinslated, It's unknown

877
00:55:36,280 --> 00:55:40,080
Speaker 2: if there's ever been a doctor convicted of criminal medical

878
00:55:40,120 --> 00:55:43,640
Speaker 2: negligence in this state. When the verdict was read out tonight,

879
00:55:44,239 --> 00:55:46,960
Speaker 2: he was very stoic. He bowed his head, but he

880
00:55:47,000 --> 00:55:47,600
Speaker 2: said nothing.

881
00:55:48,040 --> 00:55:51,360
Speaker 23: And as I understand it, because of the landmark nature

882
00:55:51,360 --> 00:55:54,520
Speaker 23: of this case, the unprecedented nature of this case, that

883
00:55:54,600 --> 00:55:58,560
Speaker 23: this will automatically go to appeal to the Queensland Appeal Court.

884
00:56:00,040 --> 00:56:02,759
Speaker 2: Very much so, because no one ever envisaged that this

885
00:56:02,920 --> 00:56:05,879
Speaker 2: area of the Criminal Code would be used in such

886
00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:09,960
Speaker 2: a circumstance, and so it is destined to go to

887
00:56:10,000 --> 00:56:12,960
Speaker 2: the Court of Appeal because this is a first, this

888
00:56:13,080 --> 00:56:14,160
Speaker 2: is a landmark case.

889
00:56:15,400 --> 00:56:20,080
Speaker 1: Here's Beryl Crosby reflecting sixteen years after that verdict.

890
00:56:20,840 --> 00:56:23,640
Speaker 16: It was the result I was expecting. He was convicted,

891
00:56:24,520 --> 00:56:26,839
Speaker 16: so relieved that it was all over.

892
00:56:28,040 --> 00:56:32,799
Speaker 1: Two days later, Justice John Byrne sentence Patel two concurrent

893
00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:36,000
Speaker 1: terms of seven years imprisonment for each of the three

894
00:56:36,080 --> 00:56:40,960
Speaker 1: manslaughter offenses and three years of imprisonment for the grievous

895
00:56:40,960 --> 00:56:45,200
Speaker 1: bodily harm offense. He was given a non parole period

896
00:56:45,320 --> 00:56:50,200
Speaker 1: of three and a half years. In sentencing Patel, Justice

897
00:56:50,239 --> 00:56:51,239
Speaker 1: Byrne said.

898
00:56:51,600 --> 00:56:55,160
Speaker 13: The verdicts of the jury established your guild on charges

899
00:56:55,200 --> 00:56:59,560
Speaker 13: of the unlawful killing of Mervyn Morris, James Phillips and

900
00:57:00,160 --> 00:57:04,920
Speaker 13: as Kemps, and of unlawfully doing grievous bodily harm to

901
00:57:05,040 --> 00:57:10,040
Speaker 13: ein vowels. Earlier events have significance for the sentence.

902
00:57:11,400 --> 00:57:16,120
Speaker 1: At this point, Justice burn set out Patel's notorious history

903
00:57:16,200 --> 00:57:21,160
Speaker 1: in the United States. This included the surgeon having consented

904
00:57:21,280 --> 00:57:24,400
Speaker 1: to an order by the Oregon Board of Medical Examiners

905
00:57:24,840 --> 00:57:29,240
Speaker 1: that required him to get second opinions for certain complicated

906
00:57:29,320 --> 00:57:30,480
Speaker 1: surgical cases.

907
00:57:31,400 --> 00:57:35,680
Speaker 13: The order and your surgical misadventures in Oregon gave you

908
00:57:35,760 --> 00:57:41,000
Speaker 13: good reason to reflect before commending major surgery to Bunderberg

909
00:57:41,120 --> 00:57:48,640
Speaker 13: patients on pertinent deficiencies in your knowledge, judgment, aptitude, and experience.

910
00:57:49,680 --> 00:57:52,640
Speaker 13: Yet you told no one at Bunderberg about the order,

911
00:57:53,440 --> 00:57:58,520
Speaker 13: not the hospital administrators, not other medical practitioners such as

912
00:57:58,520 --> 00:58:02,840
Speaker 13: anaesthetists who were to assist at the four operations, and

913
00:58:02,920 --> 00:58:07,200
Speaker 13: most importantly, not the patients you persuaded to submit to

914
00:58:07,320 --> 00:58:11,440
Speaker 13: major surgery. And you did not seek a second opinion

915
00:58:11,760 --> 00:58:16,200
Speaker 13: from a surgeon before performing the four procedures with which

916
00:58:16,240 --> 00:58:17,880
Speaker 13: the charges are concerned.

917
00:58:19,160 --> 00:58:23,560
Speaker 1: Justice Byrne then set out the circumstances of mister Mervyn

918
00:58:23,640 --> 00:58:27,440
Speaker 1: Morris's treatment and death, before remarking.

919
00:58:27,640 --> 00:58:33,680
Speaker 13: The sigmoid collectomy was performed competently. The prosecution case, however,

920
00:58:34,200 --> 00:58:38,920
Speaker 13: was that the procedure was unnecessary. The jury has concluded

921
00:58:38,960 --> 00:58:42,400
Speaker 13: that your decision to operate on mister Morris both caused

922
00:58:42,400 --> 00:58:47,520
Speaker 13: his death and involved criminal negligence. That is such a

923
00:58:47,560 --> 00:58:50,480
Speaker 13: great falling short of the standard to have been expected

924
00:58:50,520 --> 00:58:54,320
Speaker 13: of a surgeon, and showing such serious disregard for the

925
00:58:54,360 --> 00:58:57,960
Speaker 13: patient's welfare that you should be punished as a criminal.

926
00:58:58,800 --> 00:59:02,400
Speaker 13: In other words, that your decision to operate was so

927
00:59:02,600 --> 00:59:08,080
Speaker 13: thoroughly reprehensible, involving such grave moral guilt that it should

928
00:59:08,080 --> 00:59:12,400
Speaker 13: be treated as a crime deserving of punishment. The other

929
00:59:12,480 --> 00:59:17,560
Speaker 13: three surgical procedures were also performed competently enough. It is

930
00:59:17,600 --> 00:59:21,080
Speaker 13: not how you carried out the procedures that matters. What

931
00:59:21,160 --> 00:59:24,840
Speaker 13: matters is your judgment in deciding to commend the surgery

932
00:59:24,880 --> 00:59:29,400
Speaker 13: to the patient, and having obtained the patient's consent, in

933
00:59:29,520 --> 00:59:30,800
Speaker 13: taking him to theater.

934
00:59:30,680 --> 00:59:31,480
Speaker 1: To perform it.

935
00:59:32,560 --> 00:59:37,320
Speaker 13: Most importantly, three lives were lost, and mister Vows will

936
00:59:37,360 --> 00:59:41,720
Speaker 13: suffer for the rest of his life. Victim impact statements

937
00:59:42,120 --> 00:59:45,560
Speaker 13: from members of the families of mister Morris, mister Phillips,

938
00:59:45,600 --> 00:59:49,840
Speaker 13: and mister Kemp's speak of the great distress which the

939
00:59:49,920 --> 00:59:54,640
Speaker 13: untimely deaths of their loved ones have wrought. Mister Vows

940
00:59:54,760 --> 00:59:58,920
Speaker 13: has succinctly described the complications in his life and for

941
00:59:59,000 --> 01:00:02,760
Speaker 13: his wife because of the condition in which he has left.

942
01:00:03,520 --> 01:00:06,360
Speaker 13: Had you sought a second opinion on whether to proceed

943
01:00:06,440 --> 01:00:10,760
Speaker 13: with the operations. The indications are that another surgeon would

944
01:00:10,760 --> 01:00:15,600
Speaker 13: have advised against them all in mister Morris's case because

945
01:00:15,640 --> 01:00:19,160
Speaker 13: the bleeding point had not been identified and other non

946
01:00:19,160 --> 01:00:24,640
Speaker 13: invasive treatments were available, in mister Phillips's case because he

947
01:00:24,720 --> 01:00:28,640
Speaker 13: was too frail and had too many complications for an

948
01:00:28,760 --> 01:00:34,000
Speaker 13: esophagectomy in Bunderberg at any rate, in mister Kemps's case

949
01:00:34,120 --> 01:00:38,280
Speaker 13: because the esophagy or cancel was too far advanced and

950
01:00:38,360 --> 01:00:42,360
Speaker 13: other palliation treatments were preferable, And in the case of

951
01:00:42,400 --> 01:00:46,720
Speaker 13: mister Vows, because the biopsies were benign and the polyp

952
01:00:46,760 --> 01:00:50,600
Speaker 13: in his colon could have been removed without surgery. The

953
01:00:50,680 --> 01:00:54,400
Speaker 13: Court must make it clear that the community, acting through

954
01:00:54,440 --> 01:00:59,960
Speaker 13: the Court, denounces your repeated serious disregard for the welfare

955
01:01:00,200 --> 01:01:04,000
Speaker 13: of the four patients. The charges do not involve an

956
01:01:04,080 --> 01:01:07,880
Speaker 13: intention to cause harm in each of the four cases. However,

957
01:01:08,400 --> 01:01:11,320
Speaker 13: the jury has found that your judgment in deciding to

958
01:01:11,360 --> 01:01:16,680
Speaker 13: take the patient to surgery was so thoroughly reprehensible, involving

959
01:01:16,760 --> 01:01:20,240
Speaker 13: such grave moral guilt, that you should be punished as

960
01:01:20,280 --> 01:01:20,880
Speaker 13: a criminal.

961
01:01:22,320 --> 01:01:27,120
Speaker 1: Next, before handing down the sentences, Justice Byrne listed some

962
01:01:27,400 --> 01:01:28,600
Speaker 1: mitigating factors.

963
01:01:29,760 --> 01:01:36,080
Speaker 13: First, this is your first criminal offense. Secondly, incarceration is

964
01:01:36,240 --> 01:01:40,280
Speaker 13: likely to be more than usually difficult for you. You are sixty.

965
01:01:41,320 --> 01:01:45,720
Speaker 13: More significantly, your family resides overseas and will not be

966
01:01:45,800 --> 01:01:49,960
Speaker 13: here to support you through the ordeal of imprisonment except

967
01:01:49,960 --> 01:01:54,520
Speaker 13: for an occasional visit. Your notoriety will also make prison

968
01:01:54,600 --> 01:01:59,280
Speaker 13: life stressful. Thirdly, you have already spent time in prison

969
01:01:59,320 --> 01:02:04,480
Speaker 13: in connection with these and other offenses. Slight credit is

970
01:02:04,520 --> 01:02:08,560
Speaker 13: allowed for the circumstance that you're nearly cho use on bail.

971
01:02:08,800 --> 01:02:14,200
Speaker 13: Reporting three times weekly has been difficult because of abuse

972
01:02:14,280 --> 01:02:17,080
Speaker 13: experienced in going about in public.

973
01:02:18,440 --> 01:02:24,200
Speaker 1: He was convicted, he was sentenced, and did life kind

974
01:02:24,200 --> 01:02:26,800
Speaker 1: of return to something approaching normal for you?

975
01:02:26,880 --> 01:02:32,080
Speaker 4: Then life hasn't returned to anything approaching normal for me,

976
01:02:32,840 --> 01:02:36,600
Speaker 4: since I still live with it every day. It was

977
01:02:36,720 --> 01:02:41,120
Speaker 4: horrible because of the damage that was done to patience.

978
01:02:41,400 --> 01:02:45,760
Speaker 4: And when you looked back at the damage, as you

979
01:02:45,840 --> 01:02:49,040
Speaker 4: well know, it was things that he had been convicted

980
01:02:49,080 --> 01:02:54,880
Speaker 4: of doing or accused of doing twenty years earlier, back

981
01:02:54,920 --> 01:03:01,280
Speaker 4: in Buffalo or Portland or wherever. Patients cost to me

982
01:03:01,400 --> 01:03:05,240
Speaker 4: is up backward. So the thesis came out of the patients.

983
01:03:05,320 --> 01:03:10,640
Speaker 1: Now, as expected, Patel appeal to the Court of Criminal

984
01:03:10,720 --> 01:03:14,800
Speaker 1: Appeal against his convictions and he applied for leave to

985
01:03:14,880 --> 01:03:19,720
Speaker 1: appeal against the sentence. Here's Karina with Sarah again.

986
01:03:20,760 --> 01:03:24,360
Speaker 19: Did it feel to you throughout the trial that it

987
01:03:24,560 --> 01:03:28,200
Speaker 19: was ultimately going to fail, that an appeal was inevitable

988
01:03:28,760 --> 01:03:31,920
Speaker 19: and the way that the trial had been conducted was

989
01:03:32,000 --> 01:03:34,000
Speaker 19: just so fraught with problems.

990
01:03:34,680 --> 01:03:38,280
Speaker 18: Even as lay people journalists, we could tell that there

991
01:03:38,320 --> 01:03:43,160
Speaker 18: were serious legal issues being determined because the judge continued

992
01:03:43,200 --> 01:03:46,640
Speaker 18: to issue these warnings. John Byrne was even at that

993
01:03:46,680 --> 01:03:50,000
Speaker 18: stage with a very senior judge. He was pretty frank,

994
01:03:50,720 --> 01:03:53,800
Speaker 18: and he would send the jury out and he would

995
01:03:53,800 --> 01:03:57,680
Speaker 18: say to the lawyers there are problems here, and they

996
01:03:57,720 --> 01:04:00,520
Speaker 18: were continually trying to grapple with those problems.

997
01:04:00,920 --> 01:04:02,320
Speaker 15: It was pretty dramatic to.

998
01:04:02,240 --> 01:04:05,920
Speaker 18: Be in the room with no jury and to listen

999
01:04:06,000 --> 01:04:08,720
Speaker 18: to the judge hearing these arguments about whether or not

1000
01:04:08,760 --> 01:04:12,880
Speaker 18: the trial should even continue, and so much was at stake.

1001
01:04:13,280 --> 01:04:17,120
Speaker 18: I think an appeal was inevitable regardless of what happened.

1002
01:04:17,200 --> 01:04:19,080
Speaker 15: It was such an unusual case.

1003
01:04:19,680 --> 01:04:22,400
Speaker 18: The Criminal Code was at that stage one hundred and

1004
01:04:22,440 --> 01:04:26,680
Speaker 18: eleven years old and Section two eight eight of the

1005
01:04:26,720 --> 01:04:30,960
Speaker 18: Criminal Code had never been successfully invoked in Queensland.

1006
01:04:31,440 --> 01:04:32,880
Speaker 5: You would hope that.

1007
01:04:32,880 --> 01:04:36,600
Speaker 18: The state's brightest legal minds would have sorted this out

1008
01:04:36,640 --> 01:04:40,440
Speaker 18: before we got to the courtroom. But perhaps is that

1009
01:04:40,520 --> 01:04:42,640
Speaker 18: the very nature of a jury trial is that the

1010
01:04:42,720 --> 01:04:46,920
Speaker 18: very nature of not knowing exactly how witnesses are going

1011
01:04:46,960 --> 01:04:51,200
Speaker 18: to describe their evidence in the witness box. You can

1012
01:04:51,240 --> 01:04:54,720
Speaker 18: probably do all the pre troll research and interviews, but

1013
01:04:54,880 --> 01:04:58,160
Speaker 18: still things are going to surprise you as prosecutors or

1014
01:04:58,200 --> 01:05:00,720
Speaker 18: as defense lawyers as the trial unfolds.

1015
01:05:01,880 --> 01:05:04,560
Speaker 1: Tony Hoffman dropped in to hear some of the legal

1016
01:05:04,680 --> 01:05:08,640
Speaker 1: argument in Brisbane. She recently told me what happened next.

1017
01:05:09,360 --> 01:05:12,120
Speaker 4: Well, I happened to be down in Brisbane for something else,

1018
01:05:12,880 --> 01:05:17,480
Speaker 4: and I went along to the appeal and I got

1019
01:05:17,520 --> 01:05:19,600
Speaker 4: in the lift and I was in the lift with

1020
01:05:20,160 --> 01:05:25,400
Speaker 4: John Allen, who was the barrister for the nurses, and

1021
01:05:26,080 --> 01:05:30,040
Speaker 4: Ken Fleming was in there, who was Patel's lawyer, and

1022
01:05:30,080 --> 01:05:34,320
Speaker 4: I just said, where's doctor Patel because he wasn't at

1023
01:05:34,320 --> 01:05:37,880
Speaker 4: the appeal, and someone piped up, oh, he's in jail,

1024
01:05:38,000 --> 01:05:41,800
Speaker 4: and I laughed, and Ken Fleming got stuck in to

1025
01:05:41,920 --> 01:05:45,400
Speaker 4: me and said, you think this is funny. There's a

1026
01:05:45,440 --> 01:05:48,640
Speaker 4: good man, a perfectly good man, in jail for no

1027
01:05:48,800 --> 01:05:51,840
Speaker 4: reason and blah blah blah, and you really got stuck

1028
01:05:51,840 --> 01:05:52,240
Speaker 4: in to me.

1029
01:05:53,080 --> 01:05:54,640
Speaker 1: Do you recall how you responded.

1030
01:05:55,320 --> 01:05:56,840
Speaker 5: Well, I was shocked.

1031
01:05:57,240 --> 01:05:59,480
Speaker 4: I think I said, no, I don't think it's funny

1032
01:06:00,320 --> 01:06:03,840
Speaker 4: because it wasn't laughing at that. I was laughing at

1033
01:06:03,960 --> 01:06:07,760
Speaker 4: what the other person said when John Allen said I'll

1034
01:06:07,760 --> 01:06:11,320
Speaker 4: give it up ken or something like that.

1035
01:06:12,280 --> 01:06:15,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a nice bloke, John. He's a district court judge.

1036
01:06:15,080 --> 01:06:19,400
Speaker 4: Now, yeah, he was very good to us the nursing stuff.

1037
01:06:20,800 --> 01:06:25,360
Speaker 1: Here's Karina Berger, who studied the judgment from that first appeal.

1038
01:06:26,360 --> 01:06:28,320
Speaker 19: I've been reading up on the case and I can

1039
01:06:28,360 --> 01:06:32,960
Speaker 19: break Patel's legal arguments down like this. Patel argued a

1040
01:06:33,000 --> 01:06:36,720
Speaker 19: miscarriage of justice had occurred in his jury trial because

1041
01:06:36,720 --> 01:06:40,360
Speaker 19: of the prosecution significantly changing its case against him on

1042
01:06:40,480 --> 01:06:43,800
Speaker 19: day forty three of the trial. This change was the

1043
01:06:43,880 --> 01:06:47,920
Speaker 19: narrowing of the prosecution case so that only Patel's decision

1044
01:06:48,000 --> 01:06:51,840
Speaker 19: to operate was said to be the criminal conduct. Patel

1045
01:06:52,040 --> 01:06:55,320
Speaker 19: argued this change was unfair to him because a lot

1046
01:06:55,360 --> 01:06:58,320
Speaker 19: of the evidence the prosecution had put on was relevant

1047
01:06:58,320 --> 01:07:01,440
Speaker 19: to the conduct of the surgery, and the conduct of

1048
01:07:01,480 --> 01:07:06,320
Speaker 19: the surgeries wasn't in question anymore. The evidence was graphic,

1049
01:07:06,600 --> 01:07:11,120
Speaker 19: inflammatory and highly prejudicial to Patel. It was also irrelevant

1050
01:07:11,200 --> 01:07:12,960
Speaker 19: to the prosecution's narrowed case.

1051
01:07:14,320 --> 01:07:18,240
Speaker 1: Another ground of Patel's appeal was that the trial judge

1052
01:07:18,320 --> 01:07:21,960
Speaker 1: had misinterpreted section two eight eight of the law the

1053
01:07:21,960 --> 01:07:25,440
Speaker 1: Criminal Code of Queensland, and that that had caused the

1054
01:07:25,520 --> 01:07:26,880
Speaker 1: trial to miscarry.

1055
01:07:27,800 --> 01:07:31,000
Speaker 19: Patel argued that the prosecution case did not come within

1056
01:07:31,040 --> 01:07:34,720
Speaker 19: that section at all, because he said it only applied

1057
01:07:34,760 --> 01:07:37,720
Speaker 19: to the conduct of surgery and did not apply to

1058
01:07:37,760 --> 01:07:41,400
Speaker 19: a surgeon's decision to operate or to recommend surgery to

1059
01:07:41,440 --> 01:07:44,600
Speaker 19: a patient. And to add another issue to the mix

1060
01:07:44,720 --> 01:07:47,920
Speaker 19: of issues before the Court of Appeal, the Attorney General

1061
01:07:47,960 --> 01:07:52,520
Speaker 19: of Queensland appealed patel sentence In a nutshell. The attorney

1062
01:07:52,640 --> 01:07:56,600
Speaker 19: argued that the trial judge was far too lenient in

1063
01:07:56,640 --> 01:07:59,080
Speaker 19: his sentencing of Patel and that he got off.

1064
01:07:58,960 --> 01:07:59,720
Speaker 5: Far too lightly.

1065
01:08:01,040 --> 01:08:04,240
Speaker 1: Three judges of the Court of Appeal delivered a joint

1066
01:08:04,320 --> 01:08:08,880
Speaker 1: judgment in April twenty eleven. The Court of Appeal dismissed

1067
01:08:08,880 --> 01:08:13,840
Speaker 1: Patel's appeal against his conviction, and the court also dismissed

1068
01:08:13,840 --> 01:08:16,519
Speaker 1: the Attorney General's appeal against sentence.

1069
01:08:17,560 --> 01:08:18,919
Speaker 5: The judge made nowhere.

1070
01:08:20,200 --> 01:08:24,200
Speaker 1: Victims and their families were relieved that Patel would stay

1071
01:08:24,280 --> 01:08:30,200
Speaker 1: behind bars, but their relief was short lived. In the

1072
01:08:30,280 --> 01:08:35,960
Speaker 1: next episode, another rollercoaster for the patients, the nurses, doctors

1073
01:08:36,240 --> 01:08:42,160
Speaker 1: and of course, Jayant Patel. Sick to Death is written

1074
01:08:42,280 --> 01:08:47,520
Speaker 1: and presented by me Headley Thomas, the Australian's National Chief correspondent.

1075
01:08:48,120 --> 01:08:53,439
Speaker 1: Claire Harvey is The Australian's editorial director. Audio editing, production

1076
01:08:53,880 --> 01:08:58,040
Speaker 1: and music have been done by Jasperlik with assistance from

1077
01:08:58,280 --> 01:09:03,320
Speaker 1: Leah Sammaglu and Nilil Sutherland. Our producer is Christen Amias.

1078
01:09:03,560 --> 01:09:10,200
Speaker 1: Production management by Stephanie Coombs. Artwork by Sean Callenan. Thanks

1079
01:09:10,240 --> 01:09:16,120
Speaker 1: to Ryan Osland, Matthew Condon, Karina Berger, Ellie Dudley, David Murray,

1080
01:09:16,479 --> 01:09:21,880
Speaker 1: Dominique McDermott, Zach Sculander and all our family, friends and

1081
01:09:22,080 --> 01:09:26,120
Speaker 1: colleagues who helped in this series and contributed voice acting

1082
01:09:26,600 --> 01:09:32,560
Speaker 1: and special thanks to Tony Hoffman and Rob Messenger. Subscribers

1083
01:09:32,600 --> 01:09:36,400
Speaker 1: to The Australian here. New episodes of Sick to Death

1084
01:09:36,760 --> 01:09:42,560
Speaker 1: first at Sick to deathpodcast dot com and on Apple Podcasts.

1085
01:09:43,120 --> 01:09:48,320
Speaker 1: You can get exclusive access to photographs, videos, timelines and

1086
01:09:48,520 --> 01:10:03,759
Speaker 1: more at the website.