COUNSEL FOR a doctor accused of obtaining money from cancer patients by deception told a jury yesterday that his client had never promised any patient he could cure them.
Defence counsel Pat Marrinan SC said the State’s case against Paschal Carmody “is that he is some sort of con-man trying to con people to part with their money on the promise of a cure for cancer”.
Counsel said the defendant denied all of this. Mr Carmody’s position was that he “would never promise to anyone a cure for cancer”.
Mr Carmody (60), Ballycuggaran, Killaloe, Co Clare, denies 25 separate charges of obtaining €80,172 from six cancer patients and their families by deception between September 2001 and October 2002.
Seven of the charges relate to the late John Sheridan of Kells, Co Kilkenny. Mr Carmody denies obtaining €16,406 from Mr Sheridan by falsely claiming he would cure him of cancer.
Yesterday, on the fifth day of the trial, Mr Sheridan’s brother-in- law, Martin Smith, said that at a meeting with Mr Carmody and his colleague Dr Bill Porter at the East Clinic, Killaloe, on October 16th, 2001, Mr Carmody briefly touched him by the elbow as the two left a consultation room and told him: “We’ll cure John’s cancer.”
A week earlier, Mr Sheridan had just undergone ablation treatment for tumours on his liver in Cork, but was told by a specialist after the operation that he had up to 16 tumours on his liver, and just 12 months to live.
At the October 16th meeting, Mr Smith said it was agreed that Mr Sheridan would undergo the Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) Treatment at the East Clinic.
A nurse manager with the Health Service Executive, Mr Smith said Dr Porter and Mr Carmody “were speaking off the same hymn sheet on the PDT treatment. They believed in the treatment. They said that they would cure him (John Sheridan) and despite all my scepticism, they were doctors, you invest trust in doctors, and I believed them too.” Aged 58, Mr Sheridan died of his cancer in November 2002.
Under cross-examination from Mr Marrinan, Mr Smith accepted that he did not include Mr Carmody’s statement of “We’ll cure John of cancer’’ in his statement to gardaí.
Mr Marrinan asked: “Do you accept that the case against Paschal Carmody is that he promised a cure?” Mr Smith responded: “Yes, I’m aware of that.”
Mr Marrinan said: “I must suggest to you that you’re tailoring your evidence to fit in with the overall story and picture presented against Paschal Carmody.” Mr Smith said: “I don’t agree with that.”
Mr Smith said that at the meeting with Dr Porter and Mr Carmody on October 16th, the discussion of what PDT treatment would do for John’s cancer “was specific”. “They believed in this treatment, that it would work and cure John of cancer, and I felt, myself, ‘My God, this actually might work’,” Mr Smith said.
“John was facing death and this was his last hope and he believed that the treatment would cure him.”
Mr Marrinan has previously told the trial that the defendant would dispute a claim that he told a 15-year-old terminally ill boy that he would cure him of cancer, or at worst keep him alive.
Christina O’Sullivan said in evidence that Mr Carmody told her husband Derek, her son Conor and herself on July 9th, 2002, at his clinic in Killaloe, that his photodynamic treatment for cancer “would work a treat” on Conor’s form of cancer.
Conor O’Sullivan, Granite Lodge, Gorey, Co Wexford, died four months after the consultation with Mr Carmody on November 13th, 2002.
Yesterday, the jury heard that the prognosis for Conor O’Sullivan in May 2002 was hopeless, and that any form of therapy could not solve the situation.
Dr Finn Breathnach, recently retired paediatric oncologist at Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children at Crumlin, said the boy had been diagnosed with Ewing Sarcoma, which “is highly, highly malignant and spreads very readily throughout the body”.
He said the boy’s situation was hopeless, and that he was “unaware of any form of treatment that could have solved that situation”.
The trial continues today before a jury of nine men and three women.
