A Sydney general practitioner has been granted bail after police raided his Waterloo clinic early on Thursday morning and arrested him over allegations spanning decades. Andrew Robert Small, 70, was charged on Friday with three counts of aggravated sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault and sexual assault.
The bail decision means Small will live at his Bellevue Hill home while he awaits trial, subject to a $50,000 surety. The court was told the allegations against the doctor did not involve a single complaint but a pattern of alleged offending against multiple patients over many years.
Police prosecutor told the court the alleged offences were committed from a position of trust by a doctor and that the most recent allegation occurred in March. One allegation involved a woman who was sexually assaulted after seeing the doctor for stomach pain. Another complainant came forward after news of Small’s arrest and was expected to provide a statement to police on Friday afternoon about alleged offences against her beginning when she was 15 years old.
Judge Daniel Covington said further charges could lead to an application to return Small to custody. The case is now sharpened by that possibility, because police told the court the investigation is still active and additional complaints may yet follow. The prosecutor argued the alleged conduct sat inside a doctor-patient relationship that gave Small access to vulnerable people, while the defence said that same setting would no longer be available if he was on bail and barred from practising.
Small’s barrister, Troy Edwards, SC, said his client had responded to previous complaints made to the state’s Health Care Complaints Commission and insisted he would face the case. “He’s not going anywhere,” Edwards said. “He’s going to engage in this process, and he’s going to say that he’s innocent.”
The court heard the allegations stretch across decades and involve multiple patients, with police saying the pattern was serious enough to warrant close scrutiny as new material comes in. Small’s case is due to return to court on July 16, and no plea has yet been formally entered.
