Plastic surgeon who snooped on patients is suspended

A COSMETIC surgeon nicknamed The Skin Queen has been suspended after she bugged the consultations of 200 patients during a plot to oust a fellow doctor from her beauty clinic.

Dr Natalie Blakely, 44, hired private detectives to record confidential conversations between Dr Peter Forrester and his clients after the pair fell out over the alleged under-pricing of cosmetic procedures. She accused him of ‘defrauding the business’.

The tapes were discovered after Dr Forrester, 65, who denied any wrongdoing, left the Light Touch clinic in Weybridge, Surrey, amid the dispute.

When confronted by patients, Dr Blakely claimed the tapes formed part of an ‘investigation’ sanctioned by the General Medical Council and Care Quality Commission but this was untrue.

At a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service hearing in Manchester, she was suspended from practising medicine for six months for breaching patient confidentiality and ‘dishonest and misleading’ conduct.