A roundup of recent fitness to practise High Court Appeals.

Khan v General Medical Council

Khan v General Medical Council (Rev 1) [2021] EWHC 374 (Admin) (02 March 2021)

This is an appeal by Mr Khan against a decision of the MPTS to strike him off, finding he had behaved in an inappropriate and sexually motivated way towards three female members of staff.

In brief, the Tribunal said, amongst other things, in its determination Khan did not make any admissions to the Allegation[s]. The Tribunal is therefore required to determine whether Mr Khan behaved inappropriately towards Miss A, Miss C and Miss D as alleged, and whether his actions were sexually motivated

The Appeal

Broadly stated, the grounds of appeal were:

• The Tribunal failed to have any or any adequate regard to the good character of Mr Khan; and
• The Tribunal misstated the evidence, omitted to consider other material evidence, failed to resolve significant conflicts in the evidence and/or came to conclusions on the facts which did not reflect the available evidence.

A central theme of many of the submissions made by the appellant, Mr Khan, was that the MPTS simply had not grappled with, and so not reached proper conclusions upon, important aspects of the evidence which he said undermined the credibility of the three complainants.

On the MPTS approach to the evidence of Ms C, Knowles J commented that:

In relation to Miss C, the Tribunal’s approach was first to consider her credibility generally and, having done that, and found her to be ‘genuine, sincere’ and ‘credible’, to consider the individual allegations against Mr Khan.  But by then its conclusions were foregone because of what it had already decided in the first section that she was ‘genuine’. When its reasons for concluding that Miss C was ‘credible’ are examined, it is clear that the Tribunal fell into the precise trap which Dutta, supra, warned against.

“For the reasons I have given, this appeal is allowed and the sanction of erasure is quashed.”

Teewary v General Medical Council

Teewary v The General Medical Council [2021] EWHC 376 (Admin) (24 February 2021)

Appeal by Dr Teewary against 12 month suspension by the MPTS for failing to comply with GMC direction that he undergo a health assessment.

Dr Teewary appealed the suspension in the grounds that the Tribunal’s decision was substantively wrong and that it was reached after a hearing that was procedurally unfair.

n turning down Dr Teewary’s “unmeritorious” appeal, His Honour Judge Keyser QC sitting as a Judge of the High Court stated:

“In my judgment, the proceedings before the Tribunal were not in any way unfair. Dr Teewary did not make submissions when he had an opportunity to make them on 26 August 2020. The Tribunal was entitled to take the view that he was trying to frustrate the conduct of the proceedings and that it should proceed in his absence: in colloquial terms, it had his number. It gave him every opportunity to put forward any representations he wished to make. Indeed, the only representation of substance that he has ever advanced—concerning the limited information provided by the GMC to the medical examiners—was presented by Dr Teewary and considered and rejected by the Tribunal; see above. Dr Teewary did not attend on 27 August 2020. The hearing on 19 November 2020 was for the giving of the decision, and there was no good reason why the Tribunal ought not to have given its decision on non-compliance on that occasion. When the decision had been given, Dr Teewary yet again attempted to delay the proceedings, but the Tribunal very properly did not permit him to do so. The issue in the case had been entirely straightforward. It justified one or at the most two days of the Tribunal’s time. Dr Teewary had succeeded in derailing the proceedings to the extent that they had taken up seven days of the Tribunal’s time. He had been indulged quite enough.”

Reddy v General Medical Council

Reddy v General Medical Council [2021] EWHC 435

An appeal by Professor Reddy against a MPTS to suspended him for 9 months, on the ground that his fitness to practise is impaired as a result of misconduct.

Professor Reddy appealed the MPTS decision.

Mr Justice Cavanagh refused the appeal on all grounds.  He noted in his judgement that

“At the heart of these proceedings was the issue of the credibility of Professor Reddy himself. Was he telling the truth when he said that he had not been aware that he had simultaneously been receiving a full-time salary from UOC and from UCL, and that he had no dishonest intent?”

Concluding his judgement, Cavanagh J said:

“I must confess that I find mystifying the submission that the fact that there was apparent bias, prejudice or procedural unfairness arising from the fact that Tribunal did not ask any questions of Professor Reddy at the end of his oral evidence. There is nothing improper in a court or tribunal deciding not to ask questions of a party, or indeed of any witness. In this case, a very great deal of evidence was heard by the Tribunal over many days.”

Achina v General Pharmaceutical Council        

Achina v General Pharmaceutical Council [2021] EWHC 415 (Admin) (01 March 2021)

A Boots pharmacist convicted of theft of medicine lose High Court appeal against GPhC decision to strike him off.

Mr Achina’s fitness to practise was found to be impaired and the GPhC Fitness to Practise committee consequently issued him with a Striking Off Order thereby removing him from the register.

Mr Achina appealed the Striking Off Order on a number of grounds including unfairness, the fitness to pracrise committee failed to have regard to relevant evidence and the sanction was excessive because it failed to have regard to the mitigating evidence. 

The appeal was thrown out on all the grounds.  Mr Justice Lane noted, amongst other things that: 

“The Committee was entirely justified in finding that the appellant’s “extremely limited insight” had, in fact, diminished still further, at the time of its sanction decision. The appellant’s lack of insight was of considerable significance to the issue of sanction. The Committee was fully entitled to find that the appellant “had displayed no insight whatsoever into the potential consequences for patients and the public from diverting drugs outside of the legitimate supply chain.”

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