AC-2025-LON-000408 - [2025] EWHC 2846 (Admin)

Ground 1 is overarching with no detail. Ground 2 is split into 6 parts, and the detail was fleshed out in the skeleton argument and oral submissions. I shall generally follow the order in the skeleton and consider each in turn. I shall refer to the Panel’s written reasoning (or judgment) which was 194 pages long split into 492 paragraphs. Hereunder: J492 means para 492. Overall, under these grounds, Dr Foy submits that the panel were wrong to find Ms A credible and no reasonable tribunal could have come to that conclusion.

Dr Foy asserts that the Panel were wrong at J102-103 to find that Ms A’s accounts to the police and her GMC witness statement were broadly consistent accounts of the Bedroom Incident and the Sofa Incident. They went on at J104 to find they were broadly consistent with V4 of her pre-police written statement, which she made with input from O (her brother) and Prof. G (her father). Dr Foy submits that the Panel started at the wrong place, in breach of the guidance in Dutta and Khan. They decided in a blanket way to accept that her accounts were consistent and so credible and then ignored or placed inadequate weight on all the inconsistencies and so Dr Foy asserts: lies, that she told both to the Panel and to her university and others.

Dr Foy asserts that the accounts to the police were in fact inconsistent with or were to be weighed in the balance against the following. (1) what Ms A wrote in V1 on 23.12.2018 (attempted rape, not rape). (2) Her messages to O in which she stated his penis did not enter her vagina. (3) The words “abomination” in V4 came from Prof. G, not Miss A. (4) Ms A’s evidence that she made a poor choice of words using “attempted rape” not “rape” when she knew the difference, was unimpressive. (5) Ms A lied about the HIV test Dr Foy did for her (see above and the Panel’s findings). (6) Ms A lied to the University of Glasgow by paying a third person to write all or part of her thesis and then lied to the Panel by denying that she did so. There was unanswerable evidence in over 1,100 messages between Ms A and the third party showing he did the work, and she paid him. In her evidence she denied this. The Panel found that she had lied. (7) Ms A lied about the car journey to Blackpool on 2.12.2018. She asserted that she did not ask for it yet the Panel found that she did. She asserted she intended to catch the train to Glasgow that night from Blackpool, thus not stay over, but by setting off at 7 pm she had no hope of catching a train because she would arrive in Blackpool too late, and so she knew full well that she would be sharing a 4-5 hour car journey with and staying over with Dr Foy, when on her own case, he has asked her to sleep with her during the Bedroom Incident and assaulted her a mere 2 weeks before, and he had developed and erection in May 2018 when he made her cosy up to him the first time she stayed with him. (8) Ms A asserted that she was not aware of what Dr Foy described as blackmail by O and Prof. G on him, yet the messages and emails showed that she was well aware of her family’s demands for £20,000 and other compensation between 24.12.2018 and 30.12.2018. (9) Ms A’s evidence about the date of the Bedroom Incident was both contradictory and illogical. In V1 she stated it was in December. In V3 this changed to November. In her police witness statement, she stated she had left the next day. In her GMC witness statement (21.10.2020) she asserted this occurred the night before she had her vitamin D test (which was on 15.11.2018), so on 14.11.2018. She did not correct this in her second GMC witness statement (1.12.2021) or her third or fourth. Her counsel cross examined Dr Foy asserting it was 14^th. In evidence Ms A said various things: (a) she was not sure of the date; she was certain it could not have been after 20.11.2018; (b) she stayed a day or more after it; (c) Ms A deleted the words asserting that she had stayed 2-3 days after the incident from V3 when she wrote V4 so she wrote that the incident took place on 20.11.2018; (d) she asserted in evidence that the highest chance is that it occurred before the Vitamin D test. The Panel found that the date was 20.11.2018 because that was the day the vitamin D test results came back and Dr Foy had texted asking for a kiss or sex. Dr Foy’s submission is that the Panel’s finding did not accord with her live evidence. (10) Dr Foy submitted that the Panel’s findings about the chronological order of the two calls made on 23.12.2018 between O and Dr Foy was wrong. Dr Foy asserted that after the first call he had a sense that he was to be blackmailed and so in the second he played along, and so his admissions in that call were not real. When read the right way round and on the basis of his evidence that he denied any wrongdoing in the first conversation and admitted sexual indiscretion (not rape) in the second he was teasing out blackmail. In submissions Dr Foy asserted that the 9 minute call (BP324-328) was clearly made first and the other two transcripts were from the second call and that this proved his evidence. The Panel found at J148 that the 9 minute transcript was probably of the second call because O was satisfied by that time that the sexual assault did not amount to rape.

At J155 the Panel made findings about the calls. They found that O was seeking a settlement out of court without disclosing the matter to Prof. G or Dr Foy’s family but if no such settlement was reached reports would be made. The statements made by Dr Foy in the first call were not in anticipation of blackmail but in any event the issue was whether Dr Foy was telling the truth in the calls. The Panel rejected Dr Foy’s assertion that he was making statements which were untrue to O to obtain evidence of blackmail, having heard the calls live, and considered that submission to be inconsistent with the language which he used. Thus, Dr Foy’s admissions in those calls were taken into account. Dr Foy submits that they were wrong to do so because they got the calls the wrong way around.

In addition, although not in the Grounds or skeleton, at the hearing Dr Foy went back to rely on the internal inconsistencies and lack of probability in Ms A’s account raised before the Panel. Dr Foy pointed out that Ms A would not have stayed in November if the alleged May 2018 erection event had occurred. He pointed out that Ms A would not have stayed for 2-3 more days in his house in November 2018 if he had actually asked her so to sleep with him before the vitamin D test was done. He submitted that Ms A would not have accepted a lift from London to Blackpool at 7 pm on 2.12.2018 in the certain knowledge that she would not be able to take at train to Glasgow that night, when the alleged Bedroom Incident had occurred. He submitted that she would not have gone to the Cinema on 3.12.2018 and been so obviously happy, the day after she was raped. She would not have been assessed by the TB nurse on 7.12.2018 as in a bright mood if she had been raped and she would have gone to the police or told her family or friends. Finally, he submitted that she would have taken an STD test if he had raped her, but she did not.