AC-2025-CDF-000062 - [2025] EWHC 2619 (Admin)

In general, the MPT applied the Guidance properly and fairly, but two issues arise. First, Mr Anderson accepts that the MPT was wrong to apply para 148 of the Guidance which states that more serious action, such as erasure, is likely to be appropriate where a doctor has abused their position or where the conduct “constitutes a criminal offence.” In context, the reference to “a criminal offence” is to an offence involving predatory behaviour and not to offending more generally. It was an error for the MPT to have considered that para 148 applies to the appellant’s case. Nevertheless, the MPT was entitled to emphasise the seriousness of the appellant’s offending as a factor tending towards erasure, and its reference to para 148 is immaterial.

Secondly, the MPT stated that the appellant’s conduct amounted to a particularly serious, deliberate departure from the principles set out in GMP, namely the principles that (i) doctors must act within the law (para 1 of GMP) and (ii) doctors must make sure that their conduct justifies patients’ trust in them and the public’s trust in the profession (para 65 of GMP). In context, the latter principle appears to relate to trustworthiness in the sense of honesty and integrity, rather than saying anything about violence. However, any slip by the MPT about the effect of para 65 is trivial. There is no need to spell out in guidance that doctors who commit violent crimes will lose the trust of patients and the public. Any error about the effect of para 65 of the Guidance in this regard is immaterial.

Other than these two immaterial errors, I agree with Mr Anderson that the MPT applied the correct, escalating approach as set out in the Guidance and that it directed itself properly about insight in circumstances where the offence was denied. The MPT’s decision-making does not reveal any material error of approach.