In a rare move, the province’s regulatory board has dismissed allegations of professional misconduct against a Hamilton psychiatrist who allegedly sexually abused a female patient.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario made its decision Monday after the complainant failed to appear at the hearing or provide any evidence, putting an end to a nearly three-year ordeal that saw Claudio Soares resign from a prestigious position in Alberta mere weeks after his appointment.

Soares, wearing a charcoal suit and tie, sighed, shook hands with his lawyers and kissed his wife after the four-member disciplinary committee announced their decision to dismiss the allegations after an hour and a half of deliberation.

The hearing, scheduled to last four days, was cut short after the complainant, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, refused to testify. Her doctor had requested that she be relieved of her duty as a witness, advising the panel that testifying would be detrimental to her health. The doctor also said that delaying the hearing would not lessen the impact on her health, said College lawyer Morgana Kellythorne.

When the college issued a hearing notice in July 2012 alleging that Soares had a sexual relationship with a female patient, he was in the process of moving west to chair the University of Alberta’s psychiatry department. Susan Emigh, a spokesperson for McMaster University in Hamilton, where Soares was a professor at the time, told the Canadian Press he had announced he was accepting the position a month earlier.

The university’s website said the doctor had visited the Edmonton campus on several occasions as a candidate for the job and made research presentations as early as January. The position was to start Sept. 1, 2012.

The July 11, 2012, hearing notice said the relationship occurred between November 2007 and May 2009, when Soares was teaching at McMaster as well as the director of the Women’s Health Concerns Clinic, which is affiliated with the university. It also barred Soares from treating female patients unless he was chaperoned by a female doctor.

On Aug. 7 of that year, Ontario’s college sent a public notification to other provincial medical regulatory bodies informing them of the gender-based restriction.

Amid the allegations, Soares was placed on leave by the University of Alberta before even starting his new job. He resigned from the position three weeks later.

His certificate of registration with the college expired Sept. 1, 2012, making him unable to practise medicine in the Ontario, but later that month, college spokeswoman Kathryn Clarke told the Canadian Press that the referral to discipline remained in effect because CPSO had continuing jurisdiction for professional misconduct or incompetence.

At an initial hearing in August 2013, Soares pleaded not guilty to the allegations of wrongdoing against the patient, which included touching of a sexual nature, behaving and making remarks of a sexual nature, kissing, fellatio of Soares, sexual intercourse, and/or other forms of physical sexual relations. It was also alleged that he failed to co-operate fully with a college investigator.

On Monday, Soares’ lawyer, Eli Lederman, said his client was happy to have the allegations dismissed in their entirety.

“(The last few years) have been tough, having these allegations hanging over his head, and he’s now pleased they’ve come to an end,” Lederman said following the decision.

College lawyer Kellythorne told the disciplinary committee Monday that the complainant was served with a summons to witness, which required her to attend the scheduled four-day hearing, but was unwilling to testify about what she called “very serious” allegations. Without the complainant’s participation, Kellythorne told the Star, the college had no choice but to bring the prosecution to a close.

She asked the disciplinary committee to withdraw the case, which would have allowed the college to reissue the allegations in the future. Lederman, however, successfully argued that in the absence of a witness and any evidence, the case should be closes with a dismissal.

Cases are very infrequently dismissed and witnesses are usually able to give testimony, said college spokeswoman Clarke. Witnesses who are summoned are legally obligated to attend the hearings, Clarke said. The college could seek to enforce the summons in court by way of a bench warrant if witnesses don’t comply, she said.

The particular circumstances in Soares’ case — the complainant’s unwillingness to testify and provision of medical information, coupled with the doctor’s inactive licence — kept the college from enforcing the summons, she said.

Joe Wamback, a victims’ rights advocate in Newmarket who is not involved with the case, said there are many reasons why a victim would not show up to a hearing. The publicly released details surrounding this case are not straightforward, he said.

“There are millions of reasons, everything from intimidation to the realization that you’ve lied,” Wamback said. “Who knows what happened in this case.”

Lederman wouldn’t say where Soares, who declined to comment on the decision, is working now. He is no longer a member of Ontario’s medical regulatory body.

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Kelly Eby, a spokeswoman for the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Alberta, said Monday he is not a registered physician in that province.

Soares’ LinkedIn profile says he began studying toward his masters in business administration through the Executive MBA Americas program, a partnership between Queen’s University in Kingston and Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. His profile also lists him as an independent consultant on topics such as healthcare, neuroscience and medical education.

With files from the Canadian Press