Sydney:
A 39-year-old Indian-origin doctor pleaded not guilty in an Australian court to charges of raping two women during consultations.
Manu Maimbilly Gopal, an NRI from Kerala's Kochi, is accused of digitally penetrating two women illegally when they complained of abdominal pain during separate visits to a Sunbury medical clinic in Melbourne in February last year, the Melbourne Age reported Monday.
He was arrested at Melbourne international airport while waiting for an India-bound flight on March 1.
According to the report, the doctor changed his pre-booked flight to Kochi from 11 am to 1 am on March 1 to avoid arrest.
"I really got panicked. I didn't know what to do, so I can't think properly. I just wanted to flee from this situation," he was quoted as saying when he was asked why he wanted to flee the country.
Prosecutor Lesley Taylor told the Supreme Court in Melbourne that the accused wanted to conduct the examinations for his own sexual gratification.
"The prosecution relies upon this evidence as an implied admission that he is responsible for the offences charged," the Age report quoted Taylor quoted as saying.
"This trial is not about whether Dr Gopal was a good doctor. This trial is not about whether Gopal was a bad doctor. This trial is not about whether Gopal should have been allowed to practise in Australia under the limited registration programme," Taylor said.
She said the question was not whether in each case the vaginal examination carried out by the doctor was "competent or incompetent".
Defence lawyer Michael Tovey told the court that the doctor's wife and children live in India and he was isolated in Australia when he tried to leave the country.
"He is faced with the prospect of being stranded in Australia during a police investigation with no job and no family and, in those circumstances, there doesn't seem to be any dispute that it was at the last moment that he made the wrong decision," he was quoted as saying.