GMC ‘used spies in rape case hearing’

THE General Medical Council planted ‘spies’ who listened to the private conversations of the mother of a

victim who made a complaint against a doctor, it has been claimed.

Plain-clothes security guards were employed to shadow the woman at the fitness-to-practice hearing, where she accused the doctor of missing signs that her disabled daughter had been raped at a boarding school.

During the hearing, the guards told the woman they were on ‘work experience’ for the GMC. They followed her into meetings with lawyers and even into the toilets.

Ministers last night demanded an urgent investigation into the doctors’ regulator, which has now admitted hiring non-uniformed guards during fitness-to-practice hearings where doctors are charged with serious professional misconduct.

The GMC said it did so only to ensure ‘there was no risk of disruption to proceedings’. It added that an unnamed security firm had signed a confidentiality clause to ensure information was not inappropriately shared.

But while the doctor, his solicitor and the GMC panel of experts were all told about the covert arrangement, neither the mother nor her legal team were informed.

Last night, MPs and lawyers expressed dismay at the GMC’s secret policy, which, they said, could have potentially prejudiced this and other cases.

Health Minister Norman Lamb said: ‘It is very hard to understand how it can be right to have security guards present, known about by everyone except the complainant.

‘That doesn’t sound like proper justice and inevitably raises the concern that privileged information is reported back to the other side.’

The GMC said the covert policy had been used since 2007 and 16 times in the last three years – mean- ing tens of cases have been potentially prejudiced.

The mother, identified only as JXS under a High Court ruling, attended a four-day hearing in December when two non-uniformed people walked into the room where she and a female lay representative were discussing the case.

She said: ‘There was a young girl and an older man. They said they were on work experience with the GMC and following people in different departments. I believed them, we spoke to them casually and thought no more of it.

‘When I spoke to my barrister on the phone, one of them was there and one of them overheard a conversation I was having with my GP.

‘I actually feel violated. It is unforgivable and inexcusable. How many other people has this happened to?’

JXS, who only discovered the deception last month during disclosure in another aspect of the case, added: ‘They spied on us. They listened to conversations we would never have had if we had known.’ Melinda Nettleton, JXS’s barrister, said the GMC could face a misfeasance in public office charge and that the policy might have breached the Human Rights Act, adding she and JXS were followed under the same ruse at a one-day hearing in the same case last August.

She said: ‘The guards were constantly hanging about whether we were going to the loo or the coffee machine, and while I wasn’t present at the December hearing, my client was calling me with a lot of privileged information. I am astounded I was lied to and can’t believe anybody behaved like that.

‘What message does it give to the adjudicating panel that it is necessary to police the victim’s mother?’

GMC chief executive Niall Dickson said it had written to the mother to apologise and will ‘reflect on lessons to be learned’. He added: ‘We will report back to her on the actions we have taken to make sure this does not happen again.’