Martin Forde QC has recently successfully represented 2 doctors in the cases of:

Casey v General Medical Council

In this case the Dr, a GP, was accused of a sexually motivated touching of a patient’s nipple with a stethoscope. Lord Justice Girvan concluded that no panel properly directed could have found the complainant credible. He said “The finding by the panel that the patient presented as a consistent, reliable and credible witness is one that no tribunal properly directing itself on the evidence could have made in the circumstances.”

Shamsian v General Medical Council

Judgment in Shamsian was that on 4th November. Dr Shamsian was a Registrar employed by the Oxford and Wessex Deanery. She was found by the GMC to have dishonestly completed an application form for the post in 7 respects and to have also made 7 misleading statements. The High Court on Appeal quashed all the dishonesty findings and 6 of the misleading statements leaving one, which was a genuine error regarding a date.

The judge Bean J stated memorably of the doctor that “She was also entitled to assume that anyone engaged in shortlisting candidates for a registrar post would be a reasonably careful reader of an application form, rather than what Foster J (in Morning Star Co-operative Society Ltd v Express Newspapers Ltd [1979] FSR 113) described in a different context as a “moron in a hurry”.