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District court Berlin-Tiergarten: The public prosecutor accuses the doctor of having sexually abused patients
Photo: Taylan Gökalp / picture alliance / dpa
Lawyer Undine Weyers does not get very far with her question to the medical expert.
Weyer's client was a patient of the doctor who is on trial here.
According to the indictment, Dr.
Heiko J. sexually abused the patient in autumn 2012 and also tried to kiss him.
The patient has noted the attempt to kiss in a memory log.
"He wanted with his tongue, I didn't."
Lawyer Weyers started this Thursday in room 105 of the Berlin-Tiergarten district court to ask whether there is any medical explanation for a doctor examining a patient with his tongue.
The presiding judge Rüdiger Kleingünther interrupts.
"Attorney Weyers," he says.
"Are you sure you want to ask the question?" It is a rhetorical question on his part.
"It goes without saying that a French kiss is not medically indicated, I don't need an expert for that," says the judge.
Lawyer Weyers is satisfied.
You just wanted to be sure.
Much remains in the dark
It is the 18th day of the trial against Dr.
Heiko J. The Berlin doctor is an HIV expert and specialist in the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases.
His practice in Berlin-Schöneberg sees itself as a »gay neighborhood practice«.
The public prosecutor's office accuses the 63-year-old of having sexually abused patients.
The doctor asserts that all the manipulations were medically indicated.
There were no French kisses or other sexually motivated acts.
"The charges are all untrue," the defense had declared at the beginning of the trial.
This Thursday, Professor Knut Albrecht is supposed to help the court assess the actions described.
In fact, he does notice a few oddities.
But much remains in the dark.
Albrecht is director of the Brandenburg State Institute for Forensic Medicine.
He is a specialist in urology and a specialist in forensic medicine.
The 53-year-old begins his presentation with an anatomy lecture on the male genitalia.
He uses graphs to explain that the urethra runs through the prostate and that a doctor can palpate part of the prostate by inserting a finger into the patient's buttocks.
"Totally forbidden"
Weyer's client - a doctor of literature, 45 years old - said in court that Heiko J. had become sexually assaulted during treatment in September 2012.
The doctor first devoted himself extensively to his prostate and penis.
Finally he tried to kiss him.
In his memory log, he not only noted the kiss attempt.
He also noted that Heiko J. is said to have said it was "totally forbidden" what they were doing.
Expert Albrecht has so-called daily logs from practice.
He doesn't get very clever from the practice records.
According to the documents, the joint plaintiff had already been to the practice and a rectal examination was noted at that time.
Why another anal examination was carried out in September 2012 is not clear to the expert.
"I was not there"
A rectal exam is uncomfortable for most patients. For this reason, doctors tried to get as much information as possible in a single examination and to avoid another examination. When asked by the defense, the expert said that an explanation for a further rectal examination would be if abnormalities had been discovered beforehand and should be clarified again. He does not find any information on this in the practice protocol. According to the defense, there should have been another investigation to check whether an infection had completely resolved. A reason that also makes sense to the reviewer.
Heiko J. is unable to judge whether Heiko J. has devoted himself too intensively to the patient's prostate.
Ultimately, these are subjective feelings that are difficult to access to third parties.
"The length of time and the way in which it was pressed cannot be assessed," says Albrecht.
"I was not there."
Then he comes up with the so-called urethral swab, an uncomfortable, sometimes painful procedure in which a stick is pushed into the penis to detect a possible germ infection.
The doctor's defense had stated that the stimulation of the prostate produced a secretion that served as the body's own lubricant to make the urethral swab less painful.
According to this, the prostate would be massaged first, then the penis would be handled.
Take off only the bare essentials
Albrecht is not convinced.
"I've never heard that before."
It is "theoretically possible," but medically questionable.
"It doesn't make any medical sense." Because the prostate secretion could falsify the result of the urethral swab.
As a result, the doctor would not have a urethral swab, but a prostate swab.
The appraiser also stumbled upon the co-plaintiff's description that he should completely undress.
Rather, it is common for patients to remove only what is absolutely necessary.
"But of course there is no law that you have to do that."
The forensic doctor does not comment on the alleged words that Heiko J. said it was "totally forbidden" what they were doing.
It's not his specialty.
"I'm out of there." Heiko J. had contradicted such information about his defense right at the beginning of the trial.
You are wrong.
Albrecht comes to the next patient and co-plaintiff.
In court, the academic, in his mid-30s, described how powerless and at the mercy he felt in May 2013 during the treatment by Heiko J.
The doctor is said to have intensively stimulated his prostate and massaged his penis and testicles at the same time.
The patient got an erection.
The doctor is said to have asked him to “make sure that something comes out”.
For the co-plaintiff, this was an invitation to masturbate.
He said in court that in order to free himself from the faint he went on the offensive.
He said to the doctor that he should just keep working on his penis, then he would not have to masturbate.
Heiko J. refused.
So he masturbated to the point of ejaculation himself.
The doctor patted his thigh.
The doctor also remembers a patient who masturbates.
The defense said that Heiko J. immediately stopped the treatment at the time.
The patient contradicts this representation.
Professor Albrecht tries to medically interpret this incident described by the co-plaintiff. He does not succeed. If the aim is to examine ejaculate, the patient's glans is usually cleaned beforehand, given a sterile cup and sent to a separate room to masturbate. "Doing this in the presence or even with the help of the doctor is not customary, let's put it that way."