Doctor says sexual assault didn't happen

Peter Schwarz took the witness stand Thursday to deny a female patient's allegations that he touched her in a sexual manner on two occasions in 2015.

The 49-year-old physician also told the court that he didn't make any inappropriate comments to the woman.

He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual assault — charges arising from incidents that the 38-year-old complainant said occurred on Oct. 16 and Dec. 4, 2015 at his Market Mall clinic.

Schwarz's denials came on the heels of the woman's emotion-charged testimony that began Wednesday and wrapped up Thursday morning at the Sault Ste. Marie courthouse. 

The complainant, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, said her doctor rubbed her breast and buttock during an Oct. 16 visit to his Second Line West office, and touched her again in December. 

Schwarz testified that he had seen the woman 58 times in the five years she had been his patient— which at more than 10 times annually was very much above the two to four times he saw an average patient.

"She's very needy in her health needs," he told his lawyer Dominic Lamb. "She needs a lot of reassurance to explain her various illnesses."

The Ottawa defence counsel took his client through a number of documents, charts and reports from his patient's medical files.

Schwarz, who has been in private practice since 2009, testified that he met with the woman on Oct. 2, and reviewed a lab report from her gynecologist that indicated she had pre-cancerous cervical cells caused by HPV, but didn't discuss vaccination.

Nothing out of the ordinary occurred, he said, indicating there had been no discussion of s sexual nature between them and that she didn't make a joke about oral sex.

The doctor told Ontario Court Justice Romuald Kwolek he refilled her thyroid medication prescription and gave her a requisition sheet for blood work.

When the woman testified, often breaking down in sobs, she said that she had told Schwarz about asking her dentist to check her mouth because she was concerned about HPV since she enjoyed oral sex.

She said she told Schwarz about this during the Oct. 2 appointment, and before he opened the door as she was leaving he said "it's funny you said that and that you like doing that (oral sex)."

As she was going down the hallway, she said she joked "not any more," telling him he was lucky that she has some control.

Schwarz disputed that she had made the sexual joke at that visit, insisting it occurred on Oct. 16, and that he hadn't made any inappropriate comments to her.

Referring to the patient's chart, he testified he talked to her about getting an HPV vaccination and quitting smoking on the 16th, after he had received a letter from the specialist, asking him to do that.

The gynecologist wanted him to give her the vaccine, Schwarz said, indicating that he had received the Sept. 24 letter after the earlier appointment.

He said he had "a long conversation" with the complainant about getting the vaccine "to minimize the risk of cervical cancer."

The woman has chronic respiratory issues, so he listened to her chest and heart with his stethoscope, over her clothing, the doctor said.

Schwarz agreed that she'd shown him her stomach, but indicated he hadn't touched it and replied "no" when Lamb asked if he had touched her in a sexual manner.

He told the court he hadn't made any inappropriate comments, but she had during their discussion about HPV. 

The patient stated she wouldn't have sex without a condom because she didn't want to infect anyone, then told him she'd visited a dentist because she was worried since she preferred oral sex, he said.

After opening the door and as he was walking to the front of the office, the doctor said the patient told him he was "lucky she has self control because she was dreaming of giving me a blow job."

Schwarz said he was "surprised and taken aback" by the comment, which his secretary overheard.

"I turned and looked at her (the complainant) and said 'don't speak like that.'"

He saw the woman again on Dec. 4, after she had been hospitalized for one of her ailments.

She had been vomiting for 12 hours and underwent IV treatment before being discharged from the hospital.

Schwarz said the woman was "better now" and he examined her abdomen, noted it wasn't tender, and checked her heart and lungs.

He denied that the woman had confronted him about things that happened during the Oct. 16 visit.

The court heard he learned of the woman's allegations in February 2016 when a city police officer came to his office to retrieve her charts.

During cross-examination by prosecutor Paul Larsh, he said there had been no comments of a sexual nature by the woman, nothing he found offensive or inappropriate, and he had no concerns about her behaviour, prior to Oct. 16.

He insisted that although he and the woman had some discussion about HPV at the Oct. 2 visit, she talked about the dentist and made her joking comment when she was at the clinic two weeks later.

Schwarz said he is "absolutely sure" of that because there was "one visit with inappropriate comments and it stuck out in my mind."

He agreed with Larsh, the north region sexual violence Crown attorney, that there was nothing in the medical charts that would indicate it happened on Oct. 16.

The prosecutor questioned why the doctor hadn't noted something he conceded was a concerning and unusual occurrence.

"I'd spoken to her in the hallway . . . I didn't think of writing it in the chart."

Larsh pushed the witness about why this "significant and unusual" and "totally out of the ordinary" information wasn't in the chart.

"I don't put everything a patient says in the chart," he replied. "We were busy that day."

Referring to a May 20, 2016 letter Schwarz wrote to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Larsh noted he had indicated the discussion about the dentist occurred on Dec. 4.

Schwarz said that was a mistake. 

"To be honest I didn't spend much time on. I thought it was a frivolous complaint and rushed through it," he explained. "I'm sure it all happened at the same time."

He rejected the Crown's suggestion that he had taken the woman's comment as an invitation to act on it and wanted to see how he far he could go with it.

The court also heard from Schwarz's secretary Cathy Belsito, who said she was in British Columbia on Oct. 2, but recalled the complainant being at the clinic on Oct. 16, four days before her scheduled appointment.

She told the court Schwarz had left the examining room and the woman came up behind him, saying, she had been "dreaming of giving him a blow job," giggled and continued out the door.

Belsito said that was all she heard, but her reaction was "what the hell is that" and she followed her boss into his office and asked what had happened.

"He was annoyed," she testified. 

Earlier in the morning, Kwolek heard from the complainant's sister.

The Sudbury resident said she received a phone call from her sister in mid-October 2015 about the actions of her doctor.

"She was hysterical. She was hard to understand and was very emotional."

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