A West Australian GP has been granted bail after being charged with more than a dozen child sexual abuse offences.
Douglas William McCarthy appeared at the Perth Magistrate's Court on Tuesday, charged with 19 offences of a sexual nature against children, including 10 counts of sexually penetrating a child.
Dr McCarthy is a GP who works in the coastal Mandurah suburb of Halls Head as well as in Donnybrook in the state's South West region.
The 60-year-old's alleged victims are two girls, both said to have been aged 15 when the alleged offences took place between November 2019 and March 2022 in Mandurah and the South West.
Photo of naked girl on doctor's phone, prosecution alleges
The court was told Dr McCarthy abused one of the alleged victims at his home when she would stay over after babysitting for him.
The police prosector said the offending began when the girl was 15, continued until after she turned 16 and had been either reluctant or non-consensual on her part.
The prosecutor said a phone seized when a search warrant was executed on Dr McCarthy's home on September 12 was alleged to have contained a naked image of the girl taken when she was 15.
Dr McCarthy is also accused of paying another 15-year-old girl for sex contacting her over the social media app, Snapchat.
Witness interference a risk: Prosecution
WA Police opposed Dr McCarthy being granted bail, based on what the prosecutor said was the risk he would interfere with the alleged victims or potential witnesses.
The court was told the mother of one of the alleged victims told police she had observed her daughter and Dr McCarthy engaging in a Snapchat conversation, during which she claimed he told her daughter, "they can't force you to make a statement".
The prosecutor said a second device seized from Dr McCarthy during his arrest on Monday showed he had communicated with potential witnesses, asking them what they had told police.
In one communication read out in court, with a girl said to be 17 years old, Dr McCarthy said "… just say he never touched 15-year-olds, he was strict about that".
Dr McCarthy's lawyer, Chris Townsend, argued his client had no criminal history and had been a doctor for 36 years.
He said Dr McCarthy had no complaints registered on APHRA and had accepted he would be suspended while these matters were dealt with.
While police raised the issue of Dr McCarthy being arrested at the airport his lawyer explained his client had recently been working on rotation which included a week in New South Wales.
The Magistrate — who noted the current delay to trial as being two years — said the allegations were serious, but she was satisfied she could put adequate conditions in place to allow bail.
Dr McCarthy was granted bail on strict conditions including a $50,000 personal undertaking and $50,000 surety.
Other conditions of his bail include that he must surrender his passport, not use social media and allow police to access his phone at any time.
Dr McCarthy is next due to appear in court on October 25.
