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Photo: Taylan Gökalp / picture alliance / dpa
Since April, Heiko J. has had to answer five cases before the Berlin-Tiergarten district court on charges of sexual abuse.
The internationally recognized doctor is said to have attacked five patients between 2011 and 2016.
The 62-year-old denies the allegations.
Medically necessary measures may have been misunderstood by patients.
All just misunderstandings?
Or a #MeToo scandal about a doctor who has exploited his position of trust for years?
Michael B. is one of the patients who accuses Heiko J. of sexual assault.
The 45-year-old is a joint plaintiff in the process.
This Monday he reports in court what should have happened eight and a half years ago in practice.
Some memories have faded.
He answers questions from the judges and the public prosecutor.
The defense will question him on Thursday.
"When he started pushing on my prostate, I started to wonder"
According to the plaintiff, he was alone in a room with Heiko J. that day. "Dr. J. greeted me very differently than usual. ”He had touched his face, touched his cheek. He was then supposed to lie down on a treatment chair, a special chair for proctological examinations. It had struck him as unusual that Heiko J. insisted that he undress completely.
Heiko J. then massaged his prostate without prior notice. "When he started pushing around on my prostate, I began to wonder." It seemed like a long time, maybe half a minute. Heiko J. prepared a so-called urethral swab, in which a fine rod is inserted into the penis. He took B.'s penis in his hand, pushed the foreskin back and forth, not twice, not three times, but far more often. Even after the smear, he continued to "milk" his penis. At some point B. got an erection. And Heiko J. said "that what we are doing is now forbidden".
In this situation someone suddenly tried in vain to open the locked door.
That didn't bother the doctor.
"He's not doing this for the first time," Michael B. thought.
"Then he tried to kiss me." Heiko J. continued to touch his penis.
"And that was the moment when I pushed him away and was able to break it off." He explained to the doctor that he didn't want that because he continued to come to the practice as a patient and didn't want to mix up the levels.
He annoys him today that he justified himself back then.
"Instead of getting angry."
The associate judge asks him a little later if he thinks that they both viewed this as a sexual situation at the time.
“It was clear to me that it was a sexual act,” says B. And he thinks that Heiko J. was also aware of that.
"Did you feel overwhelmed by the situation?" Asks the prosecutor.
"Yes," replies the plaintiff.
It was the first time that something like this had happened to him.
He also says he found it difficult at first to view the incident as a sexual assault.
Confused, he left the practice.
So confused that he took the right of way from a woman driving his bike.
Confusion also speaks from his memory transcript, which he wrote immediately afterwards in a café nearby.
The co-plaintiff noted contradicting feelings in it.
Amazement, sexual excitement, defense.
The presiding judge will read it on that day when Michael B. has already left the courtroom.
The protocol is formulated in the presence.
"I wonder why Heiko massages my prostate so extensively." He, Michael B., lets himself into it a little, can "enjoy" it a little.
Heiko J. massage his "tail", then a "nasty pain" during the urethral swab.
Further penis massage until erection.
"You see, it works!" He notes as the doctor's words.
Then his attempt to kiss him.
"He wants to be with his tongue right away, I don't." "Totally forbidden" is what they do together, the doctor is said to have said.
"Better not," Michael B. repelled him.
He struggles to tell someone about what happened, he writes.
He also notes that at no point did he feel helpless or powerless.
"What if two grown men simply sounded out what works and what isn't?"
The defendant's answers - detailed and dissolute
The defendant also speaks on that day, he speaks before the co-plaintiff testifies.
He says he has no memories of Michael B.
But he had the patient records from his practice.
He answers questions from courts, public prosecutors and medical experts in detail and extravagant.
The only thing he does not allow questions from the attorneys of the accessory prosecution.
He explains the locked door of the treatment room as protecting the patient.
Directly in front of the room there was a waiting area for patients who should not suddenly burst in.
The door could be opened from the inside at any time by pressing a button.
The documents show that he did not examine Michael B. on September 5, 2012, but in the presence of an assistant doctor.
It is quite "conceivable" that he "milked" the man's penis.
However, this is not a sexually motivated act, but part of the investigation.
He could "rule out" that he had given Michael B. a French kiss.
"Kiss left, kiss right" is not uncommon for "long-term patients and friends of the practice," he says.
"But never, of course, with highly infectious patients." Michael B. was with him for treatment for such an infection.
Notice of delay
Heiko J. also talks about the urethral swab, "a very uncomfortable and painful procedure".
A pressure on the prostate serves to obtain secretion and at the same time acts as a kind of endogenous »pain reliever«.
He explains in detail which steps with which instruments are necessary for a thorough investigation.
A look under the foreskin is necessary, as well as "slight milking movements" on the penis.
"You squeeze the prostate and milk the penis." Of course, he announces every move in advance.
Heiko J. says that he has »never experienced an erection with the urethral swab, because it really hurts«.
Other manipulations can lead to erections in patients.
"You do not have to apologize.
Be happy that it works so well, ”he would say sentences like that.
Michael B. only reported the doctor in December 2013.
Why so late?
About a week after the incident, a friend advised him to first contact the patient representative of the state of Berlin, says the co-plaintiff.
He called there and did not feel that he was being taken seriously, which is why he initially decided not to take any further steps.
In the summer of 2013 he learned from a man to whom something similar is said to have happened in practice.
They exchanged ideas.
This man is also a joint plaintiff in the trial.
In December 2013 Michael B. complained to the medical association about Heiko J. In the same month he reported the doctor.