GP fined for giving child sex-change drugs at illegal clinic

A DOCTOR who gave sex-change hormones to children as young as 12 has been fined £12,000 for running an illegal clinic from her home.

Dr Helen Webberley, 49, charged between £75 and £150 an hour to patients who wanted to change sex and gave hormones to children after they were denied NHS treatment.

She was refused a licence for her clinic by watchdog Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW) last year and prosecuted when she continued to operate.

Yesterday she was fined £12,000 and ordered to pay £11,307 costs. Her company, Online GP Services, was also fined £2,000 after she was convicted last month of operating without a licence between March 2017 and February this year.

She said she was ‘stunned’ at the decision and would appeal, and planned to move her services to England. But yesterday the General Medical Council confirmed she had been suspended pending an inquiry.

The doctor, who ran a website called Gender GP, previously told how she had given cross-sex hormone treatment to one 12-year-old and three 15-yearolds, despite NHS guidelines that they should be given only to those aged about 16 or over.

A court heard the cross-sex hormone treatment causes permanent body changes and compromises fertility.

On a website in her name, Webberley, from Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, said: ‘You are never too young or never too old to get help and support.’

She insisted she was innocent and that shutting her service risked patients coming to harm, Merthyr Tydfil Magistrates’ Court heard.

But District Judge Neil Thomas ruled she and her company broke the Care Standards Act.

He said: ‘There seems to be a clear refusal to follow the law.’

Russell Davies, defending, said Webberley set up her website after a ‘snowballing’ of interest in transgender treatment.

‘A clear refusal to follow the law’