Dr Olajide Olusesan Ogunseye of Hervey Bay wins retrial successfully after appealing rape conviction

A Queensland doctor who was jailed in 2020 for digitally raping a woman during a pap smear procedure has won the right to a retrial after a successful appeal.

A Hervey Bay doctor who was jailed last year for digitally raping a woman during a pap smear procedure has had the guilty verdict set aside, after an appeal.

Dr Olajide Olusesan Ogunseye was sentenced to 20 months’ imprisonment, suspended after eight months, in November last year, after a jury found him guilty of rape.

The Court of Appeal today allowed the appeal, set aside the verdict and ordered a retrial, after finding that the trial judge had misdirected the jury.

The Crown case was that Dr Ogunseye had penetrated the woman’s vagina with one or more fingers while doing a pap smear on October 4, 2018, before trying to kiss her.

Some days later, the woman had several phone conversations with the Hervey Bay doctor, two of which were recorded, the Court of Appeal heard.

Hervey Bay Dr. Olajide Ogunseye has won a retrial after an appeal found the trial judge had misdirected the jury. Photographer: Liam Kidston.

“Although the appellant did not expressly admit committing the offences, he said words that were capable of being regarded as tacit admissions,” the appeal court judges said.

Barrister Angus Edwards argued throughout the six-day trial that the woman was not digitally raped and it was all “an awful misunderstanding”.

The defence led evidence from a professor of linguistics and submitted that the Nigerian-born doctor of Yoruba ethnicity was not admitting guilt by apologising, but attempting to pacify a situation.

The linguistics professor said in Yoruba culture there was no equivalent to the English word “sorry” as implying an acceptance of wrongdoing.

The trial judge gave a direction to the jury about an attack on the linguistics professor’s credit, because he had previously been subject to disciplinary proceedings.

In the appeal, counsel for Dr Ogunseye submitted that the last sentence of the direction was a wrong statement of law and there had been a miscarriage of justice.

The appeal court judges found there had been a misdirection in part of what the judge said.