Blow for Sky doctor as Sutton evidence stands

THE tribunal of Doctor Richard Freeman may not conclude until June 2020 after his defence team threatened to go to the High Court on a day when Freeman’s case suffered two major setbacks.

Mary O’Rourke QC, representing the former Team Sky and British Cycling medic, asked for evidence submitted by key witness and ex- coach Shane Sutton to be dismissed because he stormed out of the hearing while under fierce cross-examination.

However, the three-person panel agreed with the General Medical Council (GMC), which has brought the case, stating O’Rourke’s ‘ bullying’ of the Australian had contributed to his premature exit. Freeman admits 18 of 22 allegations of ordering banned testosterone to the Manchester Velodrome in 2011. However, he denies that he did so knowing the 30 sachets of Testogel would be used to improve the performance of an athlete.

Instead, he claims he was bullied into making the order — which he subsequently tried to cover up — by former technical director Sutton, who angrily rejected the allegation that he had asked for the drug to treat his erectile dysfunction.

Sutton marched out of the hearing before completing his evidence last month.

O’Rourke argued it should be thrown out as a result but after considering for more than a week the panel decided that it stays.

And in a further blow for Freeman, the panel, which will determine whether he is fit to practise, also revealed a 2018 interview with the BBC’s Dan Roan, in which Freeman (below) states, ‘I was never bullied to give medication by Shane Sutton’, would also be used.

A clearly agitated O’Rourke responded to the decision by pointing out that she will consider asking for a Judicial Review, which would mean the hearing would not finish before the December 20 deadline.

As a result of commitments — including a skiing holiday Dr Freeman had booked for January, which O’Rourke said was ‘ effectively prescribed for him by his doctors’, and another case she has taken on — the hearing may then be unable to restart until June. The panel said

that Sutton’s unwillingness to continue ‘arose directly out of his perception of unfairness and bullying engendered by Miss O’Rourke’s approach to him, an approach he perceived to have begun even before he had entered the hearing room’.

They added that not excluding Sutton’s evidence wouldn’t impact on Freeman’s right to a fair trial, stating the Australian’s version of events was not ‘sole or decisive’.

O’Rourke branded the verdict ‘skewered, to put it mildly’. She added: ‘We think you have got this really wrong.’

O’Rourke branded one of the charges ‘ utter nonsense’ and added of the Testogel: ‘There is not a scintilla of evidence as to who this was ordered for... this is an utterly misconceived allegation... where is the evidence it was for an athlete?

‘This is what we call taking a flyer — or flying by the seat of your pants.’