A DOCTOR charged with a series of offences against female patients fathered a love child with a woman he met as a teenager and went on to share a flat with.
As the case against him entered its second day at Paisley Sheriff Court yesterday, Julie Ann Porter, 31, told how she had worked as Dr James Hammond's receptionist for seven years and been his live-in lover.
She said the doctor was the father of her nine-year-old daughter and that they had first met when the family GP was on a home visit to her parents when she was aged 16.
Hammond, 52, had asked her out, and later the relationship began in earnest. They set up home together in December 1989 and had lived with each other continuously since then until an acrimonious split last year.
Miss Porter said that, in the latter stages of the relationship, she became increasingly concerned about his behaviour and the running of his practice. They finally split up in January last year when he terminated her employment in writing.
Recalling the last few months she spent with him both at work and home, she said he had begun to drink too much, mostly downing a half-bottle of whisky a day.
Dr Hammond, 52, denies nine charges, alleging he conducted himself in a disorderly manner and committed breaches of the peace against eight female patients between October 1990 and April 1997 at Erskine Health Clinic, where he worked.
It is alleged he placed patients in a state of fear and alarm and that on two occasions he made indecent suggestions, kissed one on the mouth and another on the face.
A reformed drug addict who was fighting to get her life back on the rails after the nightmare of a heroin habit claimed in evidence yesterday that her road to recovery had been ruined by the GP. The doctor shocked her, she said, when he predicted during a visit to his surgery that he would have sex with her.
The incident, it was alleged, took place as the 27-year-old went for a consultation in February last year.
Michelle Therese Mallet said she had gone for a repeat prescription, but that Dr Hammond had asked to examine her for signs of injection marks on her thighs, despite the fact she insisted they had cleared up.
Dr Hammond had helped her to kick the heroin habit and after she moved to live with her boyfriend in Linwood, she stopped taking the drug and formed an even stronger relationship which helped her to get her life back in order.
She agreed, despite reservations, to allow the doctor to look at her legs and surprised herself when she blurted out ''don't you f*****g touch me''.
While she was lying on the couch, he asked her to turn on to her stomach and ''pinged'' her pantie elastic as she did so.
She was so stunned at what happened that she leaped on to the floor and pulled her trousers back on.
Miss Mallet claimed Dr Hammond had asked her personal questions about her sex life and how many times she made love with her boyfriend.
Then she said, came the incident which appalled her and led to the breakdown of her stable relationship.
WPC Caroline Scott, of Strathclyde Police's female and child unit, said that on April 22 last year she and a colleague went to the surgery and informed the doctor he was being detained for questioning.
At Paisley's Mill Street headquarters he gave an hour-long taped interview, in which he denied all of the allegations being made against him.
The trial, before Sheriff David Pender, continues.
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