The evil Ulster doctor who destroyed women's lives

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Last month the Belfast Telegraph revealed that Ulster psychiatrist William Kerr - accused of sexually abusing dozens of his patients - had died. Now his first known victim has broken a silence of 42 years to describe her nightmare ordeal to Crime Correspondent Jonathan McCambridge [...]

The Co Antrim teenager met the doctor as an outpatient at Lagan Valley Hospital. What followed was to mark the beginning of a horrific ordeal for her and the biggest sexual abuse scandal ever in the NHS. Now, almost 42 years later, Anne has spoken for the first time publicly about her fate at the hands of the disgraced doctor.

She was the first. Unfortunately, there were many others.

For almost 40 years Anne had no idea what had become of Kerr other than that he had left Northern Ireland "under a cloud". Then one day she read a press report about him standing trial in England on multiple sexual assault charges. The report left her devastated. [...]

After Kerr left Northern Ireland in 1964 his career flourished but Anne was left to pick up the pieces of her broken life. She admits to attempting suicide on one occasion. Her situation was made worse because a series of doctors and pyschiatrists would not believe what she had suffered. [...]

Over the next 30 years, 67 of his patients were to make complaints about his behaviour, including several allegations of rape and sexual assault. The circumstances in many of the cases were startingly similar to the facts outlined by Anne. [...]

Kerr did not have a criminal conviction and did not serve any punishment, but did go on the sex offenders' register for life. Last month the Belfast Telegraph revealed that Kerr had died at his home in Yorkshire at the age of 80 without ever facing justice. [...]