General Medical Council, R (on the application of) v Arnaot

MR JUSTICE SULLIVAN: This is an application by the GMC for an extension of an interim order of suspension made under the Medical Act 1983 (as amended). The extension sought is from 2 May 2007 (the existing order expires on 1 May) to 1 May 2008.

The defendant has only very recently been in receipt of public funding enabling her to obtain legal advice and representation, and has therefore at a very late stage put in both evidence and a skeleton argument. The application made on her behalf is for an adjournment to enable her to respond more fully to the GMC's application. I am very reluctant simply to grant an adjournment of indefinite duration, and it would seem that a short adjournment, bringing the case back before the expiration of the existing interim order of suspension on 1 May, would serve little purpose. However, it is important that the defendant should have an opportunity to obtain up-to-date medical evidence and in particular, in my judgment, psychiatric evidence in relation to her current state of health.

There is before the court a letter from a consultant gynaecologist dated 20 March 2007, which the claimant for obvious reasons has not had an opportunity to consider. There is also now available to the court a pre-sentence report in respect of one of the offences of which the defendant was convicted. The comments of the author of that report as to the need for a psychiatric report are particularly pertinent. It seems to me that the fair thing to do in the interests of both parties is to adopt a procedure which enables the claimant to obtain up-to-date medical evidence, in particular psychiatric evidence, enables that evidence to be considered by the claimant and then provides for the matter to come back to court for final determination. Unfortunately, the option of simply adjourning the matter for two months is not open to me because that would mean that the interim order of suspension would expire on 1 May. So what I propose to do is to order an extension of the interim order of suspension for two months, and to that extent, I accept the claimant's application.

As to the remainder of the claimant's application, that is the remaining ten months of the extension sought, I adjourn consideration of that to a hearing to be arranged in the last week of June. That will enable the defendant to obtain the necessary reports, for them to be considered by her and her advisers and for them to be supplied to the claimant, and the parties can then come back in June, and it is to be hoped that there may be more common ground as to what is the appropriate way forward at that stage. I have adopted this procedure so that the claimant does not have to go to the trouble and expense, which would be quite unnecessary, of making a fresh application after the expiration of the two-month period. So I am making it quite plain that I have not rejected the 12 months application. I am simply persuaded that, as to part of it -- two months -- a case is made out today. As to the remaining ten months, it seems to me that in fairness to the defendant she should be given an opportunity to obtain further evidence before a decision is taken as to whether the application should be granted in full. So that is the basis for my order.

MR COLMAN: Thank you, my Lord.

MS CRASNOW: My Lord, could I address you on costs?

MR JUSTICE SULLIVAN: Yes, of course.

MS CRASNOW: On Monday those instructing me asked the GMC legal department for an adjournment on the basis that legal aid has been obtain relatively recently, and that further evidence is needed to be gathered in order to defend the application properly. That request was refused and we find ourselves here today. Had the GMC said: "What more do you want to do and have you got time before the start of May to do that?", we might very well have come to the kind of decision you have reached here today. I cannot speculate more than that. In the light of those points, and although you say you have accepted the application to the extent of two months further extension, the purpose of that acceptance is to allow the defendant to gather more evidence, which is what she wanted the adjournment for. So for that reason, my Lord, I do ask for the defendant's costs.

MR JUSTICE SULLIVAN: How long were you asking for an adjournment for?

MS CRASNOW: Can I take instructions please?

MR JUSTICE SULLIVAN: Because the difficulty is any adjournment going beyond 1 May would be clearly a "no, no" from the GMC's point of view.

MS CRASNOW: Can I just take instructions?

MR JUSTICE SULLIVAN: Yes.

MS CRASNOW: It got no further in terms of time limits because there was a refusal by the GMC to countenance an adjournment. Had they come back and made the point that you raised this morning, it could have been that an agreement would have been arrived at. But I would speculate to go further there.

MR JUSTICE SULLIVAN: I do think that this is probably a case of the court very gently banging the parties' heads together and so I think the sensible course is simply to reserve the costs.

MR COLMAN: That is what I was going to ask your Lordship to do.

MR JUSTICE SULLIVAN: Right.

MS CRASNOW: My Lord, I am sorry to trouble your Lordship further, I am asked to remind you that this case is a publicly funded one. I am not sure we need an order from you in respect of --

MR JUSTICE SULLIVAN: All you want is a detailed assessment for community legal services funding purposes.

MS CRASNOW: Thank you very much.

MR JUSTICE SULLIVAN: You can have that. Thank you both.

Yes, Ms Crasnow, I have not made any directions about supplying reports and so forth to the GMC. I simply leave that for the commonsense of the parties. If things are bounced on the GMC at the last minute, then I am afraid the court may well take a very dim view of it. So that would not be a very wise course of action. I am sure that will not happen, but I will leave that to the good sense of the parties really. Thank you.