Dr James Peters at the Supreme Court. Source: Herald Sun
A DRUG-addicted doctor who visited the plague of hepatitis C on scores of women will have at least a decade in a cell to ponder the torment of those who trusted him.
Disgraced anaesthetist James Latham Peters, 63, was po-faced as he stood in the Supreme Court dock to be jailed for a maximum of 14 years for his "truly reprehensible" crimes.
"The physical damage caused by your conduct, and the associated emotional harm, cannot adequately be described by me in words," Justice Terry Forrest told him.
"The victim impact statements speak for themselves ... I cannot and do not allow myself to be overwhelmed by them, but neither can I ignore them."
James Peters' victims tell of their torment
Peters, who has hepatitis C, pleaded guilty to negligently infecting 55 women, though prosecutors said there were others.
"There are approximately 10 more who refused to speak to police for fear that their partners would learn that they had undergone terminations and were suffering from hepatitis C," chief Crown prosecutor Gavin Silbert, SC, said.
Peters was addicted to the narcotic painkiller fentanyl, injecting himself with it.
He then re-used the syringes when administering anaesthetic to women attending the Croydon Day Surgery for abortions.
The infections occurred between June 2008, and November 2009.
"This was not a single transitory madness with 55 dreadful consequences," Justice Forrest told Peters.
"You had been addicted for many years, you knew you had hepatitis C, and you knew how it could be transmitted to others.
"You breached the great trust that every patient places in his or her treating doctor."
In imposing a minimum non-parole term of 10 years, the judge said he had to sentence the "professionally disgraced and socially isolated" man on a range of factors, not just the pain and suffering he had inflicted.
Peters had told the Medical Practitioners' Board of Victoria of his drug problem in 1995, but he kept secret his positive hepatitis C status.
His registration was suspended for a year from May 1996, and he remained under the board's supervision until February, 2010, when he was deregistered. Outside court, Slater & Gordon practice group leader Julie Clayton said Peters' victims had mixed feelings about the sentence.
"Prosecution and defence were united on one point, and that is that the medical board dismally failed to protect these women," she said.
Fifty of the victims are suing Peters, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency and the former director of the Croydon Day Surgery.
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