General Medical Council v Amarasingha

MR JUSTICE CRANE: This is an application by the General Medical Council for an extension of the interim suspension imposed on Dr Amarasingha originally on 20th February 2003 by the Interim Orders Committee. An extension can at this stage only be granted by the court. The application is for an extension of 12 months.

There is a letter faxed this morning from solicitors acting on behalf of the doctor, asking that there be a short adjournment to allow him to have proper legal representation. Bearing in mind that he has not attended recent hearings and bearing in mind that the present suspension would expire on 19th August, I am refusing any adjournment, and indeed there is no indication that I can see that he or anyone representing him would be likely to appear on a future occasion if the matter were adjourned.

These are serious allegations. There is evidence that they have been admitted by the doctor. They relate to requesting a loan from a carer of a patient and removing patient files. It is highly relevant that this doctor has previously been found guilty of serious professional misconduct in 1990 and 1994. He was restored to the register in 1997.

I am grateful to Miss Callaghan, not only for her skeleton argument, which sets out the situation clearly and helpfully, but to her for referring me to the decision of the Interim Orders Committee, making it clear that the possibility of imposing conditions of practice on the doctor was considered and the conclusion was reached that there were no conditions which would adequately protect the public interest and the doctor's own interests. Her submission is, and I accept, that that remains the situation.

There is no doubt that this matter has become protracted. The defendant, according to his solicitors, has no faith the hearing will take place on 1st-4th November. Indeed, such a fear or such a lack of faith is, in a sense, common ground, because I am told that there are witness difficulties in relation to that date. Plainly, it is a matter of anxiety that this matter should be protracted any further. On the other hand, there is no doubt that at least part of the delay has been caused by requests by the doctor for adjournments.

I have considered whether a shorter period of further extension than 12 months would be proper, but it is pointed out that, even if the hearing was to go ahead on 1st-4th November, there would still be the possibility of appeal by the defendant if the result was adverse to him.

In my view, an extension of 12 months is proper and justified in this case. Miss Callaghan points out that the Interim Orders Committee has a duty to review the suspension and can remove it, and other committees have the ability to look again at the matter. Plainly, if there was an adjournment from 1st-4th November, and particularly if some satisfactory alternative to suspension was to be put forward, there would be a need to consider it, but none has ever been put forward so far. For those reasons, I grant the extension of 12 months.

MISS CALLAGHAN: My Lord, the General Medical Council seeks its costs of having to make this application. My Lord, I do accept that the Council was required by statute to make this application, nevertheless I submit that the claimant should be entitled to its costs for two reasons. First of all, but for the defendant's conduct in delaying the substantive hearing by his failure to attend those hearings and by his requests for adjournments, it would not be necessary to be here today because the matter would already have been determined.

MR JUSTICE CRANE: I follow that and in principle I am not unsympathetic to that, but the schedule shows costs of £4,500.

MISS CALLAGHAN: Yes, my Lord.

MR JUSTICE CRANE: Well, put in ordinary language, I think that is over the top for an allegation of this kind.

MISS CALLAGHAN: My Lord, obviously it is for you to summarily assess the schedule. If your Lordship took the view that a smaller amount was appropriate, then the Council would accept that, of course, but I should point out that my instructing solicitor's hourly rate is below the guideline hourly rates for London solicitors of his experience, and in my submission he has not spent much time dealing with this matter.

MR JUSTICE CRANE: Just a moment. How can it possibly have taken ten hours to work on the documents in connection with this application?

MISS CALLAGHAN: Well, because, my Lord, you will see that there are a lot of documents in the case --

MR JUSTICE CRANE: Yes, I know. But somewhere there will be a file, will there not?

MISS CALLAGHAN: Yes.

MR JUSTICE CRANE: The GMC presumably keeps a file.

MISS CALLAGHAN: There are many files that have had to be put together for the purposes of this hearing together. The papers that were in front of the Interim Orders Committee on each occasion have been different, so particular bundles had to be put together. But my instructing solicitor had to draft particulars of claim and a witness statement, both of which were fairly detailed, and in my submission ten hours to deal with all of those matters, as well as instructing counsel, writing to the defendant -- my instructing solicitor has had to write to the defendant on no less than four occasions about this hearing, seeking his consent to the order to avoid the need for there to be a hearing today, and none of that correspondence has been responded to until this morning in a sense. So, in my submission, ten hours is actually about right, if anything fairly conservative for the amount of work that has had to be done by my instructing solicitor. My brief fee not only includes the costs of attending today, but also the costs of drafting the skeleton argument, reading into the case and advising. I am afraid, my Lord, it does mount up.

MR JUSTICE CRANE: You are happy that I summarily assess today?

MISS CALLAGHAN: Yes, I am.

MR JUSTICE CRANE: I follow all that, but this is an application for an extension of an interim order and it seems to me that particularly the work done on documents is excessive. I assess the costs, as best I can, at a total of £3,000.

MISS CALLAGHAN: Thank you, my Lord.