A Far Northern health professional will face court over rape and child sex allegations later this month. The defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has been charged with four counts of rape, 13 counts of indecent treatment of a child under 16 and one count of maintaining an unlawful relationship. The historical charges were made public when the accused appeared in Cairns Magistrates Court in February 2017. The case moved through the courts for the better part of two years until it finally progressed to the District Court in October last year, when Judge David Reid presided over a pre-trial hearing in Cairns. The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency would not comment about the practitioner, but an AHPRA spokeswoman said registered health practitioners had “a positive obligation, under section 130 of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law, to disclose certain charges or convictions as they arise”.
