By Brian Smith

A DOCTOR accused of raping a girl at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee looked into her medical records 33 times in the four months after the alleged incident, an IT specialist told the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday.

Diana Carter (48) said she had been asked to check the patient medical records at the request of a CID officer and found Dr Nadim Shah’s user name was the only one used to access the girl’s records over the period.

Confronted by medical authorities, Dr Shah admitted the unauthorised access to the records.

Consultant Dr Michael Jones (47), the assistant medical director with responsibility for regulation of computers, said he was more concerned with the breach than the reasons for it, but recalled that during the meeting with Dr Shah, he volunteered information that the searches had been carried out at the request of the girl’s family.

He told the senior medical staff interviewing him that he was checking for the results of tests on a possible urinary tract infection and said there had also been some question of a potential pregnancy.

Dr Jones told the court that records of pregnancy testing were no longer held on the computer system which was accessed, as testing was no longer carried out centrally.

At the time Dr Shah was a senior house officer in paediatrics and as patient records disclosed the date of birth, from the ages of the patients whose records he examined, it was apparent he could not be involved in their care.

Asked by advocate depute Dorothy Bain if the breach was a disciplinary matter, Dr Jones said that it was the first by Dr Shah and he was given a formal letter stating that such a breach could not and must not happen again.

Dr Nadim Mohammed Shah (26), of Downie Park, Dundee, denies that on April 5, last year, he sexually assaulted the girl, who is now 18, and repeatedly raped her to her injury.

He also denies obtaining unauthorised information about the girl and members of her family between March 1 and August 14, last year, in contravention of the Data Protection Act.

Mr Donald Findlay, QC, for Dr Shah, has lodged a special defence giving notice of the intention to lead evidence of consent by the girl.

An elder sister of the girl said she had known Dr Shah for many years and he was such a good friend of the family, she regarded him “as if he were my own child.”

He was not their personal doctor and neither she, nor any member of her family she knew of, had asked him to look at their medical records.

The jury then watched a video recording of an interview with police officers, carried out when Dr Shah attended voluntarily at police headquarters.

He told detectives he had known the girl for some years, and some time in 2000 she approached him and told him she loved him.

Although attracted to her, he said he told her no relationship was possible because she was 15 at the time. Almost immediately he began to receive violent calls to his mobile phone.

He met her again, admitted he loved her and might marry her but told her, “We have to wait a few years.”

The calls continued and when he tried to call back the girl hung up. “A guy then phoned me up and said ‘Stop bothering my girl friend.’ That was the end of that,” he told the interviewing officers. In February last year, he was married in Bangladesh but two or three months later the silent calls to his home in Dundee started again.

He called a family meeting and confronted the girl but she denied making the calls.

Despite this, contact continued and he said she began to threaten to harm herself if he did not meet her.

Worried about what she might do, he agreed to meet her at the Central Library in the Wellgate Centre, and although he told her it was finished she called again.

They met secretly early one morning and he told her it had to stop. In an effort to frighten her off, he asked her if she wanted “a one-night stand” and said her reply was, “That’s all I want.” He added, “I told her, if we do, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

However, still concerned about what she might do, he called her the following night from his work at the Tayside Institute of Child Health. She said she was in a taxi and coming to see him. He said he met her, having told a nurse he would be away for about half-an-hour and took her to a seminar room where it was quiet.

“She started kissing me, I kissed her back and one thing led to another,” he told detectives.

Earlier, the court heard from the doctor’s former best friend, a relative of the girl. He recounted what he considered was an unusual conversation between the doctor, his wife and himself.

He said Dr Shah asked what he would do if someone raped his sister and he told them he would kill him. He was then asked what he would do if someone raped the girl in the case and replied that he thought she was old enough to take care of herself.

Questioned by Mr Findlay, he agreed that he had waited until May this year until he told anyone about this conversation.

The trial continues.