Douglas William McCarthy: Doctor who admitted sex with two teens guilty of sexual offences against six more

A WA doctor who paid teenage girls for sex and indecent photographs is facing years behind bars after a jury convicted him of a raft of vile child sex abuse offences. Douglas William McCarthy had been on trial in the District Court for more than three weeks, accused of defiling and indecently propositioning eight complainants between 2019 and 2022. Prosecutor Sean Stocks warned the jury in his opening address that it was a “a disturbing account of depravity” and a “sordid tale,” before they were made to sit through more than three hours of “graphic and disturbing” images. That was just a sample of McCarthy’s home-made “library” of child exploitation material, including videos of the 63-year-old having sex with multiple victims. It was alleged the GP had persistent sexual relationships with five of the girls, sexually penetrated a sixth, possessed indecent images of a seventh teen and offered $8000 to an eighth girl, aged 17, to have sex with him seven times. McCarthy pleaded guilty to four charges mid-way through trial but continued to protest his innocence over the other 10 charges, insisting he believed his victims were over 16. But after a full day of deliberating, the jury found him guilty on all counts on Thursday. Mr Stocks said McCarthy had committed “the stealing of their childhood.” The grooming began with the GP paying the girls to send him nude photos of themselves and he then talked them into sexual activity, first on his massage table then in his bed. Sex toys and “naughty schoolgirl outfits” were involved, and he plied them with tens of thousands of dollars in cash, drugs and alcohol at his canal-side apartments in Perth’s south. There were also gifts including an unusual pet imported from interstate. As time went on, “he started treating me like an old prostitute”, one of the girls complained. “Each of these girls, as they get older, they’re being replaced by someone new, someone younger,” Mr Stocks said. McCarthy “invited them to call him a good boy” during sex and was heard in videos proclaiming “I’m in heaven” and “fantastic” — even defiling the girls when he was recovering from a knee replacement and rostered in the South West. He never used a condom and gave several girls medication to treat the chlamydia that he “gave or might have given them,” Mr Stocks said. On the witness stand, McCarthy insisted he “never coerced anybody for sex”, despite evidence of countless payments made to the girls, and claimed they sent him nude pics unsolicited. He even chuckled as he recounted buying a second bong for one of the girls moments after trying to return the first one, which the store didn’t accept back “even though it was wrapped up.” McCarthy was also found guilty of attempting to pervert the course of justice, after paying and offering bribes to three of the girls to lie to police. The now suspended GP has been remanded in custody and will be sentenced on August 22.