She was wetting the bed and seemed withdrawn from her family. Mr Duncan viewed the conversation as a veiled threat made more alarming when Zoe later revealed more details of the alleged incident.Īfter being discharged from the LGH, Zoe was inconsolable. 'Ī hospital manager said Zoe wasn't upset enough to have been sexually assaulted. I don't think he's going to take legal action. 'Then she went on to say that this doctor is a very nice man, and you need to hurry up and make up your mind about what you're going to do. 'Less than 12 hours after Zoe had reported to me what had occurred, I happened to bump into and she indicated to me she'd been to this doctor's house the previous night and she said 'the doctor and his wife are very upset, and the doctor's wife said the little girl must have misunderstood what the doctor was saying'. 'He explained medically why those things might have happened,' Mr Duncan said. They remember he later told Mr Duncan to go home and gather Zoe's belongings for an overnight stay.Īt first, Zoe told her father the doctor had squeezed her breast, told her he loved her, and stuck his fingers in her mouth, later telling the child to keep 'their secret'.Ī hospital manager told Mr Duncan his daughter wasn't upset enough to have been sexually assaulted. They remember he told Ms Duncan to take Amanda, who was six, home. Lifeline (24 hour crisis line): 131 114.They remember he told them she was beautiful, and how he looked forward to taking care of the young girl. Mr Duncan and his wife Anne remember the doctor's interest in their daughter when they arrived at the LGH emergency department. Zoe alleged a doctor had raped her - a horrific claim her parents have long struggled to have taken seriously by those supposed to protect their child. 'It wasn't until several weeks later that she gradually revealed to a psychologist and to my wife the extent of what had actually occurred,' Mr Duncan said.

Mr Duncan returned to find his daughter highly distressed, and said he knew something was wrong. Zoe, suffering an asthma flare-up, had been left in the LGH emergency department while her parents dropped their younger daughter home. 'Zoe was a fun, charismatic, bubbly, happy-go-lucky girl, and she came out terrified, she would have night terrors, there was a lot of crying,' Amanda said. Before 2001, Zoe was a passionate hockey player, wickedly funny, stoic in the face of a long list of chronic illnesses, and empathetic towards even dead flowers, which she would pick and arrange so they didn't feel left out.Īfter a mid-year admission to the Launceston General Hospital (LGH) - one of many in the then-11-year-old's life - everything changed.

Girl gets stuck and raped