In February 2018, an Alberta woman went to police to file a complaint against a Calgary neurologist.
The woman alleged she was sexually assaulted during a neurological exam in 2007.
She told Global News she was suffering from migraines at the time, and that’s why she was referred to Dr. Keith Hoyte.
She was shown into the examination room by a nurse, who told her to take off her shirt and bra and put on a gown.
The woman said she felt uncomfortable, but the nurse said it was policy.
When the neurologist entered the examination room, he didn’t say anything to the patient and never made eye contact.
The woman said he pushed her gown down below and fondled her breasts with both of his hands, never explaining what he was doing.
She described leaving the appointment with the feeling she had been violated.
Calgary Police said it was only after this victim came forward in 2018 that investigators looked back and found two other historical complaints with similar allegations — one from 2008 and one from 1991.
About four months later, Global News broke the story that police charged Hoyte with three counts of sexual assault.
That news story and a subsequent media release by police spurred more than two dozen other women to come forward.
This case has raised a lot of questions. Who potentially knew about this abuse? Who should have taken action? Could any of these cases have been prevented?
And why weren’t the historical complaints investigated when those two women had gone to police decades earlier?
One woman’s courageous decision to go to police about sexual abuse at the hands of a neurologist spurred dozens of women to come forward and raised questions about accountability. Could this abuse have been stopped sooner?
In this episode of the Global News podcast, Crime Beat, crime reporter Nancy Hixt shines a light on who may have known what was happening and when.
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Contact:
Twitter: @nancyhixt
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NancyHixtCrimeBeat/
Email: nancy.hixt@globalnews.ca
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