Murder-accused paediatric surgeon Peter Beale back in court for murder, fraud trial

JOHANNESBURG - Murder-accused paediatric surgeon Peter Beale is due back in the Johannesburg High Court on Thursday for the resumption of his murder and fraud trial.

Beale has been accused of reckless conduct that resulted in the deaths of three children he operated on.

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According to the State, following a failed investment in the 2000s, he undertook "unnecessary and inappropriate" surgeries to try and re-establish his financial position.

The State called another paediatrician as its first witness, whose identity the court ordered be withheld and he’s currently facing a tough cross-examination.

In his evidence-in-chief, a report he compiled, in respect of one of the children over whose deaths Beale’s charged, was led.

In that report, he said Beale ignored a normal biopsy report and embarked on a “complex” procedure “for a non-existent disease,” and further that there was “little doubt in [his] mind” that Beale did so knowingly and for monetary gain.

However, under cross-examination on Wednesday afternoon, Beale’s counsel, Ian Green, said the assertion, which he described as “damning,” wasn’t based on the facts and that “as a matter of logic,” he couldn’t suggest as much.

He, however, said he didn’t have enough evidence that a biopsy was taken into account, and had to consider why a surgeon would operate under the circumstances.