Trial adjourned for doctor charged with incest

A trial set to start Monday for a prominent Winnipeg pediatrician charged with incest has been rescheduled for October 2018 after the accused admitted himself to hospital last week with a liver ailment.

Court heard Dr. Victor Chernick, 81, has been in hospital since Nov. 22.

"It sounds like it is going to take a month or two for him to stabilize," his lawyer Sarah Inness told Justice Joan McKelvey. "It's obvious in my submission that Dr. Chernick is neither able or even capable of attending to the jury trial."

Chernick is charged with incest, buggery, indecent assault and two counts of gross indecency in connection to events alleged to have happened between 1975 and 1979.

• 'It was such a big secret': Man waives ban on his identity in father's incest trial

Crown attorney Debbie Buors opposed postponing the three-week trial, arguing it could still be completed if Chernick was found fit enough to leave hospital. 

"The concern of course is that we are dealing with a dated matter," Buors said. "Everybody is not getting any younger, including the witnesses involved in this matter."

McKelvey granted the defence adjournment request, saying "it would not be realistic to proceed ... given Mr. Chernick's condition."

• Victor Chernick, renowned Winnipeg pediatrician, accused of sexually abusing his children

Richard Chernick and his sister Sharon Chernick filed a civil lawsuit in 2014 against their father, alleging he "sexually, physically, emotionally and mentally abused, assaulted and traumatized" them, and committed incest and gross indecency against them for years.

In the civil action, Dr. Chernick denied the allegations and said they are made out of spite and ill will, and result from "fertile imaginations." 

The allegations remain unproven and Chernick is considered innocent.