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WARNING: Graphic content
BUTCHER of Bega Graeme Reeves bent down to Carolyn DeWaegeneire and whispered in her ear, “I’m going to take your clitoris too”. Lying in the operating theatre on the brink of going under to the anaesthetic, Carolyn was powerless to stop Reeves. But 15 years on from being mutilated and with the latest “outrage” from Reeves, she remembers the moment like it was a horror movie she saw yesterday. In post operative recovery, Ms DeWaegeneire learned that instead of just removing a small lesion, the sadistic surgeon had cut away all her external genitalia.
“I woke up in the ward and I’d lost one-and-a-half litres of blood,” she told news.com.au from her home this week.
“And he said ‘the fun bits always bleed a lot, but don’t worry you can always have sex’.
“It was later said in court that a nurse who asked ‘why are you taking so much’ was told ‘Her husband’s dead so it doesn’t matter’.”
Mr DeWaegeneire would later say that in mutilating her, Reeves “took away the core of my being” and left her with impaired urinary function.
Carolyn DeWaegeneire is leaving Australia for England, saying there is no justice for the genital mutilation victims of ‘sadist doctor’ Graeme Reeves.Source:News Corp Australia
She is now preparing to leave her adopted country for good, departing Australia for her original homeland England.
Part of it is in disgust at what she says is the Australian justice system’s “lenient” treatment of Reeves.
She is “apoplectic” at the news that just last week a jury reached a not-guilty verdict in Graeme Reeves’ trial for the manslaughter of his patient Kerry Ann McAllister in 1996.
Ms McAllister, 38, died from septicaemia less than a week after giving birth to her third child after Reeves misdiagnosed the infection as a virus.
But she still grieves for what he did to her and other women while illegally practising on the NSW south coast, and that he served just 11 months in prison.
“Would he have got so little jail time if he had mutilated men’s genitals? Removed their penis and scrotum?” Ms DeWaegeneire said.
Reeves was struck off the medical register in 2004.
He had been ordered by the NSW Medical Board in 1997 to cease practising due to problems that affected his “mental capacity” to do so.
Carolyn DeWaegeneire (second right) with others who made complaints against the Butcher of Bega, Christine Griffin, Gail Small, Jenni and Maree Germech.Source:News Corp Australia
Reeves (left) with a police officer is taken to Castle Hill police station to be questioned about allegations against him.Source:News Limited
But in 2001 he took a job as a specialist obstetrician and gynaecologist, working unregistered in Bega and Pambula.
What he did there left a trail of broken lives.
Christine Griffin, who alleged that Reeves sexually assaulted her in November 2002, in his rooms in Pambula, said the experience affected her sex life and made her afraid of doctors. Maree Germech alleged he sexually assaulted her in mid-2002, also in his Pambula rooms.
Gail Small saw him in January 2003, when she alleges he botched her gynaecological procedure. She needed a full hysterectomy a year later.
“Twelve months later I had to be rushed to Liverpool Hospital and I was only given 12 months to live. I’m still alive, but I’m still very traumatised,” she said.
A fifth woman said she went to Mr Reeves for a gynaecological procedure that left her needing more surgery a year later.
Ms DeWaegeneire was a 58-year-old widow when she sought treatment in August 2002 for a small patch of discoloured skin on her labia, later identified as a form of pre-cancer.
Reeves was sentenced in March 2011 to a maximum two-and-a-half years for maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent to cause her grievous bodily harm.
Graeme Revees, aka the Butcher of Bega, heads to his trial in Sydney earlier this year. Picture: John GraingerSource:News Corp Australia
He was found guilty of indecently assaulting two female patients while conducting internal pelvic examinations, but acquitted of similar charges relating to a further three women.
He appealed to the High Court and was released in December 2013 after 60 further charges of assault against him were dropped.
Patient advocate Lorraine Long claimed a total of 832 complaints against Reeves had been made to her.
Ms DeWaegeneire believes the justice system has been kind to Reeves, who left court following his acquittal last week telling reporters “I’m dying”.
“He has been protected but they don’t give a stuff about the women he damaged,” she said.
She “went into shock for two years” following her mutilation, the swung into action after learning other women had suffered.
For more than a decade, Ms DeWaegeneire has fought for recognition and compensation for victims.
She was awarded $154,000 in damages, but Reeves said he was bankrupt and couldn’t pay.
Carolyn has now decided to pack up and leave for England, where she plans to publish a book about Reeves and her case.
“My house is virtually sold, I’ve got friends coming to help me unpack when I get there,” she told news.com.au.
“I’m a tough nut. But there’s no justice here, so I am skedaddling this country and going home to finish my book.”
Source news.com.au
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