Tribunal upholds suspension of disgraced Adelaide chiropractor Robert Marin

A TRIBUNAL has found a disgraced Adelaide chiropractor was not a “fit and proper person to hold registration” and that he was “commercially predatory” and “exploitative”.

A tribunal has upheld the suspension of Adelaide chiropractor Robert Marin.

A DISGRACED Adelaide chiropractor who filmed patients undressing and told them they were sick to sell them unproven remedies has been found “commercially predatory” and “exploitative”.

The Hove man, Robert Marin was first fined in 2008 for exaggerating people’s conditions then selling them expensive “cures”.

He also claimed he could help people lose up to a kilo a day, a claim the Australian Medical Association named both “impossible” and “dangerous”.

The Chiropractic Board and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency investigated 14 notifications as well as “Mr Marin’s use of CCTV in his clinic and routine screening X-rays for 14 children under the age of 12”.

A tribunal found he was “not a fit and proper person to hold registration”.

“Clearly patients/clients were exploited by being led to believe that they were in dire straits and required treatment and pressure was put on them to make a prepayment to cover a year of treatment,” the tribunal said in a statement issued last night.

“This is yet another example of commercially predatory, exploitative behaviour. It was exploitation of desperate people who went to the respondent in good faith.”

They upheld a decision to suspend him and are set to hand down sanctions in August.

The Advertiser has been following the exploits of Robert Marin since 2010.

Mr Marin has practised as “Dr Robert” and under the name “SimpleCertainty”.

In 2016 the South Australian Health Practitioners’ Tribunal heard of women being filmed without their knowledge, and the footage being kept.

Patients told investigators they were asked to pay $3200 for a weight loss program, and were pressured into paying. After that they were given containers with unidentified powders to use.

The tribunal heard that patients were given an X-ray when they just went for massages. One patient was told their head “was not properly attached” to their spine, so they had to pay for treatment.

“He showed me the X-rays and said that my head was not properly attached to my spine, my head was too far forward and that it was quite horrific and he was surprised I was walking, probably wouldn’t be walking in about 10 years if I didn’t get treatment,” the patient said.

Mr Marin was fined $45,000 in 2008.

CBA chair Wayne Minter said most practitioners were doing the right thing but Mr Marin broke patients’ trust.