Sanjeev Sirpal, the doctor at the heart of a controversy about Atlantic Canada’s physician licensing program, allegedly conspired to forge a diary entry that falsely portrayed a patient as racist after she complained he sexually assaulted her, a trial in Quebec heard this spring.
Dr. Sirpal is also facing sexual-assault charges in two Atlantic provinces, allegations that have spurred criticisms of the region’s screening process for physicians.
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Dr. Sanjeev Sirpal.NB Lung Website
New Brunswick granted Dr. Sirpal the right to practise there in February, 2022. The province’s College of Physicians and Surgeons knew that regulators in Quebec were in the process of revoking Dr. Sirpal’s licence for failing to disclose that he had been dismissed from a Florida medical school before eventually obtaining his degree in St. Lucia. The New Brunswick college wasn’t aware that the Quebec investigation was launched after a complaint of sexual assault.
This spring, Dr. Sirpal was on trial in Laval, Que., for obstruction of justice and counselling someone to commit an offence. The charges stemmed from allegations that he tried to discredit the Quebec sexual-assault complainant by concocting damaging evidence about her.
Details about the trial in Laval in April have not been reported until now. The Globe and Mail reviewed audio recordings of the court proceedings and the trial exhibits.
Quebec Court Justice Frédéric Bénard will render a decision Monday.
Testifying in court, a nurse named Mélina Harrisson described how Dr. Sirpal, who was her boyfriend in early 2021, told her that the Quebec College of Physicians was investigating him for sexual misconduct, and asked her to write a false personal diary entry that depicted the complainant as a Nazi sympathizer.
The Quebec college began investigating after the female patient reported that Dr. Sirpal examined her vagina and breasts when she consulted him for a concussion.
Once Dr. Sirpal was licensed in New Brunswick, an interprovincial licensing program enabled him to work elsewhere in Atlantic Canada even after his permit was revoked in Quebec. He was initially charged with six counts of sexual assault on patients in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Two of the charges have since been dropped. He pleaded not guilty to the other counts.
Physician licensing program in Atlantic Canada undergoing changes after sex-assault charges against doctor
The trial in Laval also addressed two counts of assault that the 39-year-old physician is accused of having perpetrated on Ms. Harrisson.
Dr. Sirpal denied that he had been violent with Ms. Harrisson or had asked her to create a bogus diary. Testifying in his own defence, he described her as a needy former girlfriend who was trying to mislead the court.
He said he had never talked to her about forging a document. “I have no idea what she’s referring to. I’ve never bought her a journal,” he testified.
He also denied that he had acted inappropriately with the complainant. During the college’s probe, he told investigators that, as a member of a visible minority, he had been a victim of racist abuse before, and said that the complainant wore a bandana with a swastika.
Dr. Sirpal was born in the United States and started his residency in Quebec in 2016. Ms. Harrisson testified that she met him in 2019 while they worked at Hôpital Fleury in Montreal, and they began a relationship.
She testified that Dr. Sirpal informed her about the sexual-misconduct complaint early in 2021. “He told me that since I am a very sensitive person who likes to write, I could pen a diary mentioning that on the day of the complaint I was present at the clinic and saw the patient.”
Ms. Harrisson said she went along with his request. “I felt a lot of pressure on his part.”
She testified that Dr. Sirpal asked to see a draft of the diary entry and suggested some changes.
The six-page handwritten diary entry, which was entered in evidence, was full of details – Ms. Harrisson had a manicure and a facial, ate a cheese-steak sandwich and hated Montreal traffic; she dropped by his clinic and saw a patient who wore Nazi insignia; the patient uttered a racial slur and said, “Black lives don’t matter.”
The prosecutor, Nicolas Désilets-Laforge, asked Ms. Harrisson which part of the diary was false. “Absolutely none of it was true,” she replied.
She said she sent Dr. Sirpal screenshots of the final entry but didn’t hear back from him. She reported him to police in June, 2023.
Ms. Harrisson also testified about the alleged assaults. The first incident took place at his house on Aug. 19, 2020. She said he became very angry after she revealed that a co-worker had tried to kiss her, and then Dr. Sirpal grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her with great force. “He said he wanted to kill me.”
She said that on Dec. 20, 2020, as she drove him to work, he lost his temper and punched her, bent one of her fingers backward and squeezed her right arm so hard it bruised.
In his testimony, Dr. Sirpal denied that he had threatened or assaulted Ms. Harrisson. He said they had arguments because she was disrespectful to his mother, and because he wouldn’t have sex with her unless she got tested for sexually transmitted infections.
Mr. Désilets-Laforge filed into evidence screenshots of an exchange on the Snapchat app between Ms. Harrisson and Dr. Sirpal, whose username was “Superman_snapz.”
In a lengthy message, Ms. Harrisson referred to the two alleged assaults. Dr. Sirpal wrote back that he had never intended to hurt anyone. “I was upset but I absolutely didn’t want to harm you,” his message said.
Dr. Sirpal told the court the Snapchat exchange was misleading: “There are huge intervening chunks of text that are missing here.” However, he said he couldn’t remember what had been removed.