Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care v (1) General Medical Council & (2) Dr Neill Charles Garrard [2025] EWHC 318 (Admin)
- Summary
- Citing
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A statutory appeal by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care against a decision by the General Medical Council’s Medical Practitioners Tribunal. The Tribunal had found that Dr Neill Garrard’s fitness to practice was not impaired despite allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards two female patients.
The appeal is based on two grounds: the Tribunal’s incorrect self-direction regarding the test for cross-admissibility of evidence and its misinterpretation or misapplication of the legal test for cross-admissibility.
The background involves allegations against Dr Garrard of inappropriate and sexually motivated behaviour towards two patients in 2021. Both patients reported similar experiences of inappropriate conduct during medical consultations, but the Tribunal found the allegations unproven.
The Tribunal’s decision was challenged on the basis that it failed to properly apply the legal principles of cross-admissibility, which could have allowed the evidence from one patient’s allegations to support the other. The appeal argues that the Tribunal’s approach was flawed and that it should have considered the improbability of coincidence in the allegations.
The court concluded that the Tribunal did not correctly direct itself on the principles of cross-admissibility and wrongly applied the law, leading to the decision being quashed and the matter remitted for a fresh hearing.
BQC [2021] EWCA Crim 1944
R v Freeman [2008] EWCA 1863
R v Brennand [2023] EWCA 1384
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