Forensic expert disputes claims of genital injury in Shadow of Doubt case

As our gripping Shadow of Doubt podcast tops charts around the world, we reveal why a doctor who examined victim ‘Emily’ was not called to give evidence at parents’ trial.

Dr Maria Nittis examined victim ‘Emily’ and disputed the findings put to the jury about her injuries. Picture: Peter Kelly

A senior forensic doctor has disputed evidence of “grossly abnormal” genital injuries which was used to convict a NSW couple over the sexual abuse and torture of their daughter.

Dr Maria Nittis, a former head of forensic medicine in western Sydney, says the genital injuries that were detected in the couple’s 20 year-old daughter were ruptures to her hymen which could have been caused by normal sexual activity.

Dr Nittis told The Australian’s Shadow Of Doubt podcast that she also disputed prosecution evidence that one of the injuries had occurred before puberty. She said she knew of no research which supported such a finding.

The couple at the centre of the case are serving lengthy jail terms after being convicted on 86 charges of abusing their daughter over a 13-year period. The Shadow Of Doubt podcast is investigating their claims that they were wrongly convicted over their daughter’s false recovered memories of abuse.

During the police investigation, a doctor examined the couple’s daughter when she was 18 and noticed no genital abnormality, despite her later allegation that her father had violated her with rusty tools for more than a decade.

The police sought a second opinion 18 months later from Dr Christine Norrie, a forensic physician at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead. Dr Norrie testified during the couple’s trial that tears in the young woman’s hymen were grossly abnormal, and resembled injuries from childbirth. She said that based on her experience, she believed one of the injuries had occurred before puberty.

Dr Nittis, who assisted Dr Norrie in examining the couple’s daughter, said she knew of no research which supported Dr Norrie’s belief that a thin section of hymen indicated an injury from before puberty.

She also disputed Dr Norrie’s description of the injuries as grossly abnormal, saying they were the type of hymenal ruptures that can be caused by normal sexual activity.

“That would have been my assumption … I certainly wouldn’t have gone to court to say anything otherwise,” she said.

Dr Nittis wrote a report for the couple’s defence lawyers refuting Dr Norrie’s findings, and questioning how the young woman could have been tortured with rusty tools for more than a decade without any evidence of scarring.

Episode 7 of our podcast Shadow of Doubt is live now. Illustration and design by Emilia Tortorella.

But Dr Nittis’s report was never presented to the jury, after Legal Aid appointed a new defence team who decided not to call her as a witness.

Asked if that concerned her, Dr Nittis said: “I think, in an adversarial system … you’ve got the opportunity to look at different points of view or different evidence. So I think the fact that my opinion was, you know, different from Dr. Norrie’s in some ways, I think in the interest of fairness, perhaps both should have been provided.”

*The images used with this podcast investigation are for illustrative purposes only and bear no resemblance to the real people in this story, who cannot be identified for legal reasons.

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