GP’s religious grooming left patient with phobia of owls
A WOMAN who developed a fear of owls after months of religious grooming by her doctor won damages at the High Court yesterday.
Sally Brayshaw said Pentecostal Christian Thomas O'Brien took her to religious meetings where animal sacrifices were discussed, suggested she was possessed by demons and advised her against seeing a psychiatrist.
Mrs Brayshaw, 56, said she was left traumatised after she asked the GP to help her overcome her physical pain and a “desperate and low” mood.
O'Brien instead offered a way of “healing without medication” and yesterday Mr Justice Martin Spencer ruled that he had been “negligent”.
The judge said Mrs Brayshaw is entitled to around £12,700 compensation from him.
He said: “By reason of his zealous promotion of the religious aspects, he became blind to the medical aspects and thereby caused or contributed to the deterioration in the claimant's mental health.”
Mr Justice Spencer said O'Brien was “liable to the claimant for the psychiatric damage which she has sustained and its consequences”.
The GP, who was struck off by the General Medical Council in 2015, took no part in the case and his whereabouts are unknown.
But the judge rejected Mrs Brayshaw's claim against Marilyn Marathe and Teresa Rushton, two partners at Apsley Surgery in Stoke-on-Trent, where O'Brien was a locum, saying they could not be held responsible for the doctor's conduct.
The court heard Mrs Brayshaw, of Stoke-on-Trent, who has physical and mental health problems, was in pain following an operation when she went to see O'Brien in August 2012.
Her lawyers said she was “feeling desperate and her mood was low” and the GP “commended to her a way of healing without medication”.
Over the next six months O'Brien involved her in a number of religious activities, including taking her to services, giving her gifts and setting her television to the Gospel channel to “soak” her in religious content.
His wife gave her a list of “occult” items and she was taken to a meeting where a preacher spoke of sacrificing an owl, which left her “terrified” of the birds and she became upset when seeing a picture of one, the court heard.