NZ — Napier, North Island. In June 2017, David Kang Huat Lim was found guilty of stupefying male patients to sexually assault them. While treating the men for minor ailments, Dr Lim sedated them with Midazolam and then indecently assaulted them; the men awoke to the doctor touching their genitalia. Identifying as a woman at the February 10, 2020 parole hearing, Lim denied offending and was refused parole.

Twitter user asks whether crimes of transgender-identifying sexual assailant will be recorded as having been committed by a woman.

At Lim’s trial in 2017, the defence argued that the patients knew Lim was “overtly gay”. The defence claimed that this knowledge, combined with the hallucinatory side effects of the drug Lim administered, caused them to believe they experienced things that did not actually happen. However, most of the victims testified that they were unaware of the doctor’s sexuality. Lim was found guilty of five counts each of indecent assault and stupefying.

At the sentencing hearing, Lim’s lawyer asked the judge to consider the doctor’s wasted career, financial ruin and imprisonment challenges as a gay man. However, the judge stated that this distress “goes with the territory” and that the doctor’s assaults had had a premeditated nature. Lim was sentenced to five years in prison, beginning August 18, 2017.

Born in Malaysia, Lim came to New Zealand in 2006; Lim was served a deportation notice in December 2017. In 2018, the New Zealand Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal stripped the doctor of a licence to practise in New Zealand.

I'm so over it Ani. I am not playing this game anymore. You don't get to assault people with your penis and then tell everyone you are a woman, and we're supposed to play along with this stupid ideology. When are these journalists going to grow a backbone!? — Paula Gosney (@PaulaKGosney) February 24, 2020

Lim first became eligible for parole in February 2019. At the February 2020 hearing, the Parole Assessment Report indicated that Lim had not undertaken any rehabilitative intervention and had no safety plan for release. Additionally, Lim’s family in Malaysia do not believe Lim is guilty. The parole board ruled that Lim poses an undue risk, whether released in New Zealand or in Malaysia.

Lim will be up for parole for a third time in July 2021. According to Stuff Limited, the usual practice is to deport people only after they have completed their prison sentence.

Read more on this story Doctor David Lim denied parole, continues to deny offending

NZ Herald

Disgraced Hastings doctor David Kang Huat Lim has been declined parole because Lim, who now identifies as female, is in denial of her offending. Jailed doctor David Lim – who now identifies as a female – has been denied parole

Stuff.co.nz

A doctor jailed for drugging and sexually assaulting patients now identifies as a female and continues to deny her offending and has been declined parole. Doctor jailed and humiliated after sexually assaulting patients

NZ Herald

The tables have turned for four young men who testified in the trial of a doctor who sedated and indecently assaulted his patients.