A Newcastle physician has denied allegations he sexually assaulted eight patients and the wife of a further patient during medical consultations at his clinic.
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In a judge-alone retrial on Tuesday, Jeremy Michael Stafford Coleman faced 13 counts of sexual assault, indecent assault and common assault of the nine alleged victims on nine occasions between August 2008 and November 2012.
Crown prosecutors claim the 69-year-old conducted inappropriate breast and vaginal examinations which were not intended for any medical purpose but rather for the doctor's sexual gratification.
As a renowned immunologist, he saw patients for symptoms stemming from various causes including allergies, hormonal imbalances and mould.
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Coleman was acquitted by a jury of 50 charges in September 2018 with jurors unable to reach a verdict on the remaining 16 counts.
The Director of Public Prosecutions decided to press on with 13 charges at a retrial in front of Judge Craig Smith this week.
In Sydney's Downing Centre District Court on Tuesday, prosecutor Tony McCarthy said Coleman asked the alleged victims about their sex lives and made comments about their private parts.
One woman alleges he mentioned how she shaved her pubic hair while another claimed he quipped about her genital piercings.
One complainant told her husband that Coleman "had been very interested in her sex life, that he had touched her breasts and that it had been weird".
Another claimed he was "copping a free feel" during an internal examination.
The doctor told one patient that smoking would ruin her "pretty face" and told another that if she used a cream he recommended that she would be a "Jeremy Coleman girl," the court heard.
On multiple occasions, he asked the complainants to remove their clothes without giving them a blanket or closing the curtains in his surgery, Mr McCarthy said.
Coleman is alleged to have stroked one woman's neck and placed his hand down her blouse twice during a consultation in which she accompanied her husband to see him for an extremely bad rash.
"'(The complainant) felt shaken after what had occurred," Mr McCarthy said.
Defence barrister Lisa-Claire Hutchinson said her client denied that some of the alleged touching and penetration even occurred and that when it did, there was a genuine medical reason for the examination.
"In respect of all counts, it is in dispute that the accused possessed or acted upon an intention to obtain sexual gratification," she said.
Evidence of at least one complainant given previously at the first trial in 2017 was heard during a closed court session.
The retrial continues on Wednesday.
Australian Associated Press
