EXPERT REPORTS AND CONDUCT CONSIDERED IN THE COURTS AGAIN: LEADS TO A DOCTOR BEING ERASED FROM THE REGISTER OF DOCTORS

The judgment in Moodliar v General Medical Council [2025] EWHC 913 (Admin) provides a salutary reminder to medical experts that giving expert evidence is a highly significant task.  Failures in the process can lead to erasure from the medical register, as it did here.

“erasure was amply justified by this very serious and dishonest misconduct which risked serious harm to patients in the criminal justice system. Quite apart from patient safety, the tribunal was clearly justified in concluding that erasure was necessary to maintain public confidence in the profession.”

KEY PRACTICE POINT

This case emphasises that professional bodies, and the courts, take a dim view of those experts who, in their view, do not meet the high standards required.  Such failures can lead have major professional consequences for the experts involved.

THE CASE

The appellant was appealing against a decision of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal that she had acted dishonestly in her medicolegal work and directing her register from the register of doctors.  The appeal was unsuccessful. The judge also considered the appeal penalty involved.

THE JUDGMENT IN RELATION TO THE PENALTY IMPROSED

113. Standing back, this was a doctor who had accepted instructions to give expert evidence in a murder trial for which she did not have either the experience or training; who wrote an expert report for the court in a murder trial despite having spent insufficient time with the patient to conduct an adequate assessment and failing to make adequate notes; who dishonestly claimed in her report to have assessed the patient for 1½ hours; who repeated that dishonest claim when giving evidence on oath to a High Court Judge and jury in a murder trial; who dishonestly plagiarised another expert’s work and passed it off as her own; whose report failed to address the patient’s offence, any information obtained from the patient or from other sources, or the issue of insanity; who sought to mislead the tribunal by claiming to be of good character; and who produced testimonials to the tribunal from colleagues without disclosing the fact of her tribunal case, the earlier findings against her, or the detail of the new allegations that she was facing. Further, this was a doctor who lacked insight into the seriousness of her misconduct and who had already been the subject of an earlier finding of impairment (albeit after this conduct was committed).

114. In my judgment, erasure was amply justified by this very serious and dishonest misconduct which risked serious harm to patients in the criminal justice system. Quite apart from patient safety, the tribunal was clearly justified in concluding that erasure was necessary to maintain public confidence in the profession.