Gold Coast doctors, nurses, paramedics brought before courts for a serious of offences
From an obstetrician with dangerous drugs to a nurse who ran over her neighbour, here are the doctors and medics who faced Gold Coast courts. READ THE FULL LIST
Police & Courts
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DOCTORS, nurses and paramedics are among the most trusted professions but sometimes even they end up before the Southport courts.
UNEMPLOYMENT SCHEME
AN aged care nurse who lied about being unemployed to swindle Centrelink of almost $50,000 received a head sentence of nine months behind bars for the fraud.
Kylie Ann Rooke, 32, claimed she was unemployed when she successfully applied to Centrelink for Newstart payments and Austudy payments between 2008 and 2012.
Over the four-year period she was paid $48,852 in welfare benefits despite working as an aged care nurse at Biggera Waters.
The Australian Taxation Office contacted Centrelink in 2010 after a data match revealed Rooke was employed and earning money she hadn’t disclosed.
Rooke continued to receive the benefits for another 16 months, despite being asked to explain her income.
In Southport Magistrates Court in 2015 Rooke pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud in relation to the payments.
The court was told she was working full time in aged care and part time at an ice cream factory and was paying off $500 of her debt each fortnight.
Rooke was sentenced to nine months in jail to be released on a good behaviour bond after three months.
THE ICE DOCTOR
GOLD Coast mums were left in shock when leading obstetrician Ashraf Hanafy was caught with a stash of drugs including 9g of ice, 27.5 ecstasy tablets, bags of cannabis and hallucinogenic mushrooms.
The drugs were found when police searched Hanafy’s home in June last year after he tested positive to the drug ice in a roadside test.
The 57-year-old was fined $2000 and placed on a restricted work licence when he faced court in December last year.
He had his medical licence suspended until he won it back at the end of the year on the condition he was heavily supervised by another licensed practitioner.
The Egyptian-born doctor was one of the state’s most respected obstetricians and has published research into uterus transplants.
After the news broke shocked patients and former patients took to social media to praise the obstetrician, some crediting him with saving their children’s lives.
THE KGB FAKE DOCTOR
RUSSIAN-born Vincent Victor Berg knew how to spin a story enough to fool Queensland Health for years that he was a trained psychiatrist.
When his credentials were questioned he told the Southport District Court he was trained by the KGB, who had destroyed all records of his medical degree.
The 67-year-old posed as a clinical observer at the Gold Coast Hospital in 1999 and then as a treating psychiatrist in the Townsville Health Service from 1999 to 2002.
During that period he prescribed drugs and had access to a total of 259 patients, some of whom had severe mental illnesses.
He told the Southport District Court, during a three-week trial in 2018 that he had been trained as a psychiatrist by the KGB, which is why he faked the documents showing his qualifications.
A jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to five years prison to be suspended after he served 20 months.
MEDICARE FRAUDSTER
A DISGRACED doctor who defrauded Medicare out of $360,000 had his former Oxenford property sold post-auction to a disability service provider.
Dr Tony Mufutau Oluwatoyin Bakare ran clinics including Studio Village Oxenford Medical Centre before being charged in 2019 with defrauding Medicare.
In February, he was sentenced in the Brisbane District Court to four years in jail after making more than 4000 fake claims between April 2014 and August 2017.
Crown prosecutor Daniel Caruana told the court that Bakare “dishonestly obtained payments from Medicare in the course of his practice”.
“What is alleged is that between February 2014 and August 2017 he engaged in a course of conduct whereby he claimed Medicare benefits, the crown alleges, in relation to services that he never provided,” he said.
Bakare was the director of four GP clinics including the Holy Cross Medical Centre at West Burleigh, Tony’s Medical Centre at Underwood, the Holy Cross Medical Centre Studio Drive at Oxenford and the Studio Village Oxenford.
“The services weren’t provided because on the days that they were claimed to have been provided the defendant was overseas, or in some other cases the patient(s) … were deceased (on) the date the service was said to be provided,” Mr Caruana said.
Bakare’s former property at 28 Michigan Dve, which he bought for $595,000 in 2015, was taken to auction under proceeds of crime action. It failed to sell under the hammer after active bidding from eight parties and subsequently went to contract at $660,000.
FAKE SCRUBS
A FAKE doctor made bogus scrubs, gave a medical examination to a woman with Parkinson’s and lied about performing surgery so he could steal cars people were selling online.
Bradley Thomas Anthony Strauch, 25, also pretended to be a medico when he got a $30,000 advance at Surfers Paradise strip club Hollywood Showgirls.
The court heard that during his crime spree, Strauch replied to seven advertisements to buy second-hand cars on the website Gumtree.
He would arrive at the seller’s house in scrubs, embroidered with his name, and armed with a fake receipt that money had been transferred.
During Strauch’s four-month crime spree he told a man he met on Grindr he was homeless and after being offered a place to stay, stole more than $100,400 from his bank account.
Strauch took more than $223,885 in cash and goods during his spree.
The first offending started in September 2016 and only stopped when police caught him in December 2016.
Strauch pleaded guilty in the Southport District Court in April last year to 14 counts of fraud, six counts of stealing and one count each of attempted fraud, forged documents and possessing child exploitation material.
DOCTOR CAUGHT OUT
PEITA Melville was a doctor once heavily involved in the rehabilitation of Gold Coast drug addicts.
But in 2015 she admitted she was the one who had a problem when pleaded guilty to possession of methamphetamine, possession of utensils and to prescribing a controlled drug when not endorsed to do so.
The Southport Magistrates Court was told that in February 2013 police executed a search warrant at a Broadbeach address and found 0.6 grams of methamphetamine, a set of digital scales, a pipe and a spoon that had been used to heat the drug.
Then, in April 2014 Melville wrote a prescription for the morphine-like drug, MS Contin, despite not having the authority to prescribe drugs.
After undergoing significant and lengthy periods of hospitalisation and presented drug-free urine tests, she was fined $600 for the offences and no conviction was recorded.
SCRIPT THIEF
A GOLD Coast nurse stole a doctor’s prescription from her workplace and fudged the signature to get access to pain medicine.
Rachel Courtney Dean, 34, used the scrip, taken from Gold Coast Private Hospital, and bought oxycodone liquid and fentanyl from a pharmacy on January 2 this year.
The scrip had a doctor’s name scribbled out and replaced with another, the Southport Magistrates Court was told earlier this year.
The pharmacy soon became suspicious and police were called.
Dean told police she stole the scrip from Gold Coast Private Hospital where she worked as a registered nurse.
Dean was sentenced to a $750, 12-month good behaviour bond and no conviction was recorded.
DEAD MUM DRIVING
A GOLD Coast nurse twice tried to blame her mother for speeding when her car was caught on camera.
The problem? Her mum died years ago.
Susan Mary McDonald, 41, pleaded guilty in the Southport Magistrates Court in September last year to fraud and two counts of making a false declaration.
The court was told the single mum was caught by speed cameras on September 2, 2017, and March 5, 2019.
She then signed statutory declarations in front of a Justice of the Peace saying her mother was driving.
But police investigations found her mother died in 2016.
Magistrate Pam Dowse placed McDonald on a $5000 good behaviour bond for 12 months.
“This was a very bad decision that you made,” she said.
STICKY FINGERS
A NURSING graduate potentially doomed her career in health care when she stole a wallet from a changing room at a Robina shopping centre in June last year.
She then went on an almost $500 shopping spree.
Jessica Mary Sinclair’s theft and her string of dishonesty on her criminal history prompted a magistrate to ask if she was fit for her chosen career.
Magistrate Joan White said it would be a “risk” for Jessica Mary Sinclair to be hired as a nurse and feared she would offend against patients.
Sinclair, 34, who had previous convictions for stealing, pleaded guilty in the Southport Magistrates Court in September last year to a string of offences including theft and dishonestly gaining benefit for herself.
The court was told Sinclair has recently completed her final units for a nursing degree.
Ms White ordered the Coomera woman to complete 12 months of probation and to repay the $490.48 she spent.
PARENTING FRAUD
A GOLD Coast aged care nurse swindled almost $100,000 out of taxpayers after lying for six years that she was single.
Nicole Dunjey kept up the lie so she could continue to get the single parenting payment.
Dunjey was only found out when the Australian Taxation Office realised she was still living with her supposedly former husband.
Her husband earned almost $400,000 in the six years Dunjey fraudulently took the payments.
Dunjey pleaded guilty in the Southport District Court last year to dishonestly gaining financial advantage.
She kept receiving the single payment from August 2010 to November 2016 despite living with her husband.
Dunjey falsely claimed $99,662.08 in parenting payments.
Judge Paul Smith said: “Your offending was persistent and deliberate. The amount was spent on household expenses and you’ve not led a lavish lifestyle.”
He sentenced her to three years in prison, to be released on a $1000 good behaviour bond on December 11.
NEIGHBOUR BREAK
RETIRED nurse Pamela Anne Jessep acted “bizarrely” after running over her neighbour, causing a compound fracture and multiple other fractures to her leg.
The 65-year-old kept backing into her garage, closed the door and then retreated into her Labrador home after running over the 66-year-old neighbour about 10.30am on April 23, 2019.
Other neighbours rushed to treat the woman, who was on the ground with a bone sticking out of her leg.
Jessep pleaded guilty in the Southport Magistrates Court in August last year to one count of driving without due care causing grievous bodily harm.
Magistrate Kay Philipson fined Jessep $700 and banned her from driving for six months.
No conviction was recorded.
TOUCH OF THEFT
AN assistant nurse used her position as a volunteer with a touch football club to take more than $209,000 to pay her own debts.
Jodie Lee Hennessey, 34, made more than 560 unauthorised bank transactions to take the cash from the Dodgers Touch Football Club at Labrador in a “despicable” and “significant breach of trust”.
The club estimated it would take five years to recover the money.
Hennessey pleaded guilty in the Southport District Court in February last year to one count of fraud.
Judge David Kent described the offending as “enormously damaging” to the touch club.
Hennessey was sentenced to four years in prison to be suspended after she had served one year.
She was acting as secretary and treasurer to the small club and between January 2012 and October 2015, Hennessey began transferring money from the club’s account to her own bank, using the club’s bank cards and writing cheques to cash or herself.
She did that more than 560 times to pay for debts and everyday expenses after her husband ran into legal trouble, the court was told.
PARAMEDIC DRIVEN TO VIOLENCE
A GOLD Coast paramedic punched a man multiple times to the head during a drunken attack in Surfers Paradise.
Bradley Gerard O’Neill said he was suffering mental anguish at the time after he attended the scene of a baby shaking case.
The 34-year-old narrowly missed jail time after pleading guilty in November 2018 in Southport Magistrates Court to assault occasioning bodily harm for the Cavill Ave incident, which left a man needing stitches.
Magistrate Louise Shephard sentenced him to two years probation and 240 hours community service.
She did not record a conviction as doing so would place O’Neill’s job as a paramedic at risk.
“It is in the community’s interest that you be able to continue in that role,” she said.
PARAMEDIC TURNED TO DRUGS
A MAGISTRATE said he was “perplexed” that an off-duty paramedic could be caught in possession of a dangerous drug, given the daily challenges frontline emergency workers face.
But he hoped the medic did not lose his job over it.
Queensland Ambulance Service paramedic Jack Dawson pleaded guilty in the Southport Magistrates Court in May 2018 to being in possession of a bag of “off-white powder” in Broadbeach.
Police alleged it was MDMA but there was not enough of the powder to confirm that.
Magistrate Gary Finger gave Dawson a $600 six-month good behaviour bond. No conviction was recorded.
“Of any person on the planet, you should know you shouldn’t do this,” Mr Finger said.
“This stuff ain’t the answer.
“I’m very perplexed by this, you see the first-hand effects of this (drug). Let’s hope you can keep your job after this.”
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