A doctor who inserted his finger inside a female patient's vagina several times and took photos of her private parts without her knowledge was acquitted of indecent assault yesterday.
In Sha Tin Court, Deputy Magistrate Poon Chin-chiu said as Christopher Tong Yung-man, 31, was an inexperienced doctor, who had only graduated from university in 2004, he could not rule out that it was a genuine vaginal examination.
However, it was foolish of the doctor to conduct the intimate examination without a chaperone, Poon said.
On July 13, 2008, Tong examined a 32-year-old woman who had a groin rash. The complainant, visiting this doctor for the first time, told him that she had a skin disease but she did not specify that it was shingles. The magistrate said that this could have been interpreted as the complainant asking Tong for a diagnosis.
Tong told the woman that he wanted to have a look at her private parts and asked her to lie down. He inserted his finger into her vagina three to five times, and asked whether she felt any pain.
She felt shy and embarrassed at the time and was unaware that Tong had taken photos because she covered her eyes with her hand. She later identified herself in four photos because of a scar from giving birth.
Antonio Chuh An-tung, adjunct associate professor in public health at Chinese University, told the court that photos could be used as part of patients' medical notes for a follow-up check.
