DOCTOR SHOCK’ CLAIMS ALLEGED SEXUAL ABUSE WAS MEDICAL TREATMENT

South Africa’s infamous Dr. Aubrey Levin, who is on trial in Canada for sexually assaulting 10 male patients, has claimed that his fondling of a patient’s genitals was a medical technique he learned in South Africa.

The Calgary Herald reported that on Monday a graphic video, which was secretly filmed by a patient, was played in a Calgary court showing Levin massaging the 38-year-old man’s genitals for 14 minutes.

When he was arrested in 2010, Levin told detectives that this fondling was actually a medical procedure, known as bulbocavernosus reflex (BVR) testing, to treat erectile dysfunction.

The 73-year-old disgraced doctor said that he had learned the procedure while he was a medical student in South Africa in the 1960s.

“When I worked in South Africa we did just about everything. Some would say it was the, it was the land of medical cowboys. Because we used to learn to do everything,” Levin told the detectives in a four hour interview.

“It is embarrassing, yes. Do not do it unless you know the patient well enough to do it. To have a, to have a stranger simply do that first time is very, very difficult,” he said.

Testifying in court, Dr. Ethan Grober, a specialist in male sexual dysfunction, dismissed Levin’s claims, saying that BVR was a rarely used procedure that only involves a brief physical check.

He said that what he saw in the video was “was not a simple elicitation of reflex but a long repeated fondling or massage of the penis”.

He also said that a doctor should “absolutely” never initiate or assist in such a procedure and noted that Levin was not wearing gloves which he should have done.

“What I saw in that video was outside of any standard of practice I’m aware of. There are major boundary violations,” Grober said.

The trial has been delayed for almost a week after Levin was admitted into hospital. His defence team’s efforts to prove that he is not medically fit to stand trial were earlier dismissed by the court.

During the 70s and 80s, Levin, dubbed “Dr. Shock”, oversaw a controversial apartheid-era programme that attempted to change the sexual orientation of gay soldiers in the infamous Ward 22 at the Voortrekkerhoogte military hospital in Pretoria.

Levin is alleged to have used electric shock therapy, hormone treatment, chemical castration and “sex change” surgery to “cure” homosexual conscripts.

In the 90s, Levin fled to Canada where he set up practice as a psychiatrist.