British team doctor is branded a serial liar who ‘crossed a line’

Richard Freeman, the former Team Sky and British Cycling doctor, was a serial liar who acted out of “selfpreservation” after being caught ordering a batch of testosterone to British Cycling’s headquarters in 2011, a tribunal heard yesterday.

On the first day of closing submissions in the case which began almost two years ago, Simon Jackson QC, for the General Medical Council, painted a picture of Freeman as an “ambitious” doctor and a “risktaker” who ordered the testosterone with the intention to dope a rider.

Jackson told the tribunal: “There is a truism in life that it isn’t the lie that gets you, it’s the cover-up. And what a cover-up it has been.”

Freeman accepts that he lied to his superiors, including head of medicine Dr Steve Peters, about the package, telling them he sent it back to Oldham-based suppliers Fit4sport when he had not.

Freeman then “compromised” an employee at that company by getting her to say the package had been sent in error.

Freeman stuck to this story even after UK Anti-doping found out about the package and interviewed him in 2017. It was only when Peters gave an interview to The Sunday Times, in which he repeated Freeman’s lies, that Freeman changed his story.

Jackson said the GMC did not believe Freeman’s claims that he was bullied into ordering the testosterone by former head coach Shane Sutton, to treat the Australian’s erectile dysfunction, a claim Sutton strenuously denies.

“From first to last Freeman’s actions have been driven by one thing: self-preservation,” Jackson said.

“The GMC’S case is that Dr Freeman was an ambitious doctor, and prone to lauding his achievements when he wanted more responsibility. And with getting that came additional pressure to deliver. The GMC also submits that Dr Freeman was also a risk-taker.

“The GMC’S case is that Dr Freeman didn’t just push up to the line – the title of his book, The Line. The stripe on the team jersey. Instead, the GMC submits he crossed the line and went way beyond it.”

Freeman did not attend yesterday’s virtual hearing as he was giving Covid-19 vaccinations at the NHS practice in Lancashire where he now works as a GP.