R Khan v General Medical Council
Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
Judge | Mr Justice Lewis |
Judgment Date | 23 January 2014 |
Judgment citation (vLex) | [2014] EWHC J0123-7 |
Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
Date | 23 January 2014 |
Docket Number | CO/17168/2013 |
[2014] EWHC J0123-7
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
2 Park Street
Cardiff
South Wales
CF10 1ET
Mr Justice Lewis
CO/17168/2013
Mr D Morris (instructed by Radcliffes Le Brasseur) appeared on behalf of the Claimant
Mr D Pievsky (instructed by General Medical Council) appeared on behalf of the Defendant
PROCEEDINGS
Yes Mr Morris?
MR MORRIS: May I please you my Lord. I appear for the appellant and my learned friend, Mr David Pievsky appears for the respondent, General Medical Council. This is an appeal against a sanction of 4 months' suspension imposed on the doctor's registration by a Fitness to Practise Panel of the General Medical Council on 30th October 2013. I hope your Lordship has the most up to date version of my skeleton argument which has the relevant pagination in it.
I do. I must confess I have worked on the previous version because I marked that up before I got the version. I gather there is no difference save for page numbers.
MR MORRIS: There is no substantive difference save putting in the pagination from the bundle.
My Lord, may I just tell you before I go further that you may have received an application notice for the admission of new evidence together with a skeleton argument in support of that. I do not propose to make that application now at the outset of the hearing. This is something that I have discussed with my learned friend. It would seem to me, and subject of course to your Lordship's approval, that the most appropriate time to make that application would be at a stage when the new evidence really becomes relevant.
That is fine. Is there an objection to the admission of the new evidence any way?
MR PIEVSKY: There is but we do not object obviously to you looking at it in order to determine whether it is admissible.
We will deal with it when we get to the ground about the effect of the sanction on Dr Khan.
MR MORRIS: Your Lordship will probably know that section 40 which provides the power of appeal to the right of appeal to the appellant is in bundle 1, at page 143.
If it assists you I am familiar with this area of law Mr Morris but do not let me…
MR MORRIS: I am very grateful your Lordship.
Do not let me stop you taking me to anything, it just so you have an idea.
MR MORRIS: You know the right of appeal is in section 40(1) and you know that the powers that you have on an appeal set out in section 47 on the following page: you can dismiss this appeal; you can allow it and quash the direction or variation appealed against or (c) substitute for the direction any other direction which could have been made by a Fitness to Practise Panel.
The actual findings are at 35D, as I understand it. That is the one where they make the order and section 40 is the appeal against the order and section 35D.
MR MORRIS: That is correct.
Yes.
MR MORRIS: The invitation, or submission I make today is that the determination was wrong, should be quashed and I invite you, if you agree that it is wrong it should be quashed to substitute a direction pursuant to that subsection. Either there should be no sanction beyond the Panel's determination of the impairment or that there should be a sanction for a shorter period of suspension.
My Lord, I do not know to what extent you need me to go through the detail of the factual background. You will know that the appellant was convicted of offences under the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act and the Fraud Act. They related to the writing of two prescriptions in 2010 for his on use, purporting to have been signed by a colleague, Dr Gudsurkar. The intention of using those prescriptions was to medication for his own use.
I have gone through the facts. I need to make absolutely sure I have them clear in my mind and I am looking at the charges. I am not dealing with the third prescription in relation to the son because that was not a matter that he was convicted of. I am just dealing with the two prescriptions. I understand it he took two prescriptions from the pad, for his own use when he was on the hajj, signed them in different handwriting, signed them in the name of his colleague and went to different pharmacies because although he had done the handwriting different in order to prevent detection, he subsequently decided that it would be even safer, from his point of view to avoid detection for his criminal acts, to go to two different pharmacies.
MR MORRIS: Correct.
When we see the making of a false instrument one offence of making a false instrument. What does that actually refer to one — is that prescription or what?
MR MORRIS: That relates to one prescription.
The two offences of making a false representation, is that when he presented them to the pharmacy at Sainsburys?
MR MORRIS: Yes.
Why is it only one offence of making a false instrument because he did two?
MR MORRIS: My Lord—
That is what it was.
MR MORRIS: The convictions that were entered were as a result of negotiation with the prosecution.
Okay.
MR MORRIS: An agreement was arrived at. You will have read however, although that the convictions actually only relate to two prescriptions, the doctor readily acknowledged, both during the course of police interview and indeed before the Panel that three prescriptions were involved.
I understood that before the police he did not admit everything. He lied again.
MR MORRIS: No, he did not. They were canvassed with him.
Yes.
MR MORRIS: At the stage of police interview he only admitted one prescription.
In this court, I think I can only proceed on the basis of the two that he forged for his own use because he was not charged and it was not part of the facts that he had done the third one for his son. But I am correct, am I, when he was tasked with explaining what had happened he only admitted one of the two prescriptions and he lied about the second one even then?
MR MORRIS: Yes.
And you are asking for no sanction.
MR MORRIS: My Lord, I am asking for no formal sanction on the basis that even if no order is made or was made by the Panel, there would effectively have been a substantive sanction that he had suffered, namely the five-and-a-half months of interim suspension that was imposed upon his registration prior to the hearing.
Did this presumably when they started investigating, they investigated the person whose pad the prescriptions came from and they presumably had to investigate his colleague, Dr Gudsurkar. They were drawn into it.
MR MORRIS: I am not sure whether he was actually — yes he was. He was approached and he made a statement to the effect that was not his signature. Indeed that it looked like or was similar to the signature of the appellant.
It is his own colleague; he knew this man who he forged the signature from.
MR MORRIS: My Lord, yes. He does not dispute and did not dispute before the Panel that these were serious offences.
Right. Okay. Three criminal offences. He drew in his colleagues. He lied about one. Okay.
MR MORRIS: My Lord, the background to that offending which was clearly serious and he has acknowledged was serious was that at that time he was in deep personal and domestic crisis. Your Lordship will have read about that.
I have read about the circumstances of his wife. You do not need to trouble me with the details. I have read that.
MR MORRIS: In the two personal statements that he has made.
I have read both his personal statements, very carefully.
MR MORRIS: I am grateful. As I said, prior to the hearing, in August 2012, he was suspended for 18 months by an Interim Orders Panel. That only in fact lasted for five-and-a-half months until it was substituted by interim conditions in February 2013 and in fact, just to finish the story, later on before the hearing those conditions were in fact removed entirely.
The consequence of that interim suspension was that he lost his job at the University Hospital of Wales, and in turn that led to the school of Post Graduate Medical and Dental education, the Wales Deanery, withdrawing his training number. If my Lord, you do not have a training number—
You cannot complete your training.
MR MORRIS: You cannot continue in training.
Was this the specialist corneal training or this just the general year 6 of his training?
MR MORRIS: Both. The year 6 of his training, which was the final year, did involve training in this subspeciality of corneal diseases and surgery.
Okay. He was going to be doing that but because of his criminal actions he could not complete the training and indeed he lost his job. Obviously he has his join back now.
MR MORRIS: He lost a job. He has his job back. The effect is effectively that he has been delayed by 1 year in completing his training.
The whole training and the subspecialty?
MR MORRIS: The subspecialty was part of the year 6 training.
Yes. That will be delayed by a...
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