Doctor removes widows clitoris, says she didn’t need it anymore.
Doctor removes widows clitoris, says she didn’t need it anymore.
Posted on October 29, 2013
A woman left mutilated by a NSW doctor who removed her labia and clitoris without her consent says she is “livid” about his minimum two-year jail sentence.
“My sentence is for life, I am an innocent person,” Carolyn DeWaegeneire said on Friday after Graeme Reeves was jailed for crimes against three women and a fraud offence.
“I was hoping a woman would be considered equal to a man. If a penis and a scrotum had been cut off what sentence would you give to him?”
NSW District Court Judge Greg Woods sentenced Reeves, a gynaecologist who practised in Bega on the state’s far south coast, to a maximum of three years and six months in prison.
The judge said the treatment of the women was “reprehensible” and Reeves, who sat with his head in his hands throughout the hearing, had not shown any contrition for his conduct.
In March, a jury found the 60-year-old guilty of maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm (GBH) on Ms DeWaegeneire with intent to cause her grievous bodily harm in 2002.
In April, Judge Woods found him guilty of indecently assaulting two patients, while conducting internal pelvic examinations.
The doctor in February pleaded guilty to obtaining a financial advantage by deception, involving his breaching a ban by carrying out obstetric procedures.
The Medical Error Action Group, which helped to expose Reeves, said the sentence should have been at least seven years.
“To get three and a half years for those [crimes] in total is just inadequate,” MEAG founder Lorraine Long said.
“I would have expected double that sentence.”
Ms DeWaegeneire, who has given permission for her name to be published, was a 58-year-old widow when she sought treatment for a small patch of discoloured skin on her labia, later identified as a form of pre-cancer.
The jury accepted that Reeves told her he was going to remove a lesion but never mentioned taking anything else.
But in the operating theatre, moments before Ms DeWaegeneire fell unconscious from the anaesthetic, Reeves “leaned over me and for my ears only he said `I’m going to take your clitoris too’”.
A nurse in the operating theatre challenged the doctor: “You wouldn’t be taking my clitoris, no matter what.”
Reeves replied that the patient’s husband was dead “so it didn’t matter anyway”.
The exchange showed Reeves had “lost all perspective about his treatment of the patient”, the judge said.
However, he was not satisfied that Reeves deliberately intended to carry out an “unnecessary and unjustified” operation.
“It is possible he believed wrongly but honestly that he should perform the operation … in order to eradicate any possibility that the potential cancer could become malignant and invasive.”
From me: How about I remove your balls cuz YOU dont need them anymore?? Asshole.
