MR JUSTICE
MITTING
____________________
Between:
| PROFESSOR JOHN WALKER-SMITH | Appellant | |
| – and – | ||
| GENERAL MEDICAL COUNCIL | Respondent |
MR STEPHEN MILLER QC AND MS ANDREA LINDSAY-STRUGO
(instructed by
EASTWOODS SOLICITORS) for the Appellant
MISS JOANNA GLYNN QC AND MR
CHRISTOPHER MELLOR
(instructed by FIELD FISHER WATERHOUSE LLP)
for the Respondent
Hearing dates: 13th. 14th, 15th, 16th & 17th February
2012
On 15th October 2004 charges of serious professional misconduct brought
by the General Medical Council (GMC) against Dr. Andrew Jeremy Wakefield,
Professor John Angus Walker-Smith and Professor Simon Harry Murch were referred
by the Preliminary Proceedings Committee to a Fitness to Practise Panel (the
panel). The hearing took place under the old rules – the General Medical
Council Preliminary Proceedings Committee and Professional Conduct Committee
(Procedure) Rules Order of Council 1988. They required the charges to be
established to the criminal standard and for them to be determined in a two
stage process: to decide which facts, in addition to those admitted, were
proved and whether such facts would be insufficient to support a finding of
serious professional misconduct; if not, to decide whether each practitioner was
guilty of serious professional misconduct and, if so, what, if any, sanction
should be imposed upon him. The hearing began on 16th July 2007. After 149 days
of submissions and evidence, the panel began to consider its decision at the
end of the first stage. It deliberated in camera for approximately 45 days. On
28th January 2010, it handed down written findings as to the facts which were
admitted and which it found proved and its conclusion that they were not
insufficient to give rise to a finding of serious professional misconduct.
After three further days of submissions and evidence, concluding on 14th April
2010, the panel reserved its decision on the second issues. In a written
decision handed down on 24th May 2010, it concluded that Dr. Wakefield and Professor
Walker-Smith were guilty of serious professional misconduct, but that Professor
Murch was not. It ordered that the names of Dr. Wakefield and Professor
Walker-Smith be erased from the register of medical practitioners. Both
initially appealed, but Dr. Wakefield has subsequently abandoned his appeal.
Professor Walker-Smith challenges the findings made against him at both stages
of the procedure and the outcome – that he had been guilty of serious
professional misconduct and that his name should be erased from the register.
This appeal was originally set down for two weeks. In the event, thanks to the
detailed written materials supplied to me before the hearing and, above all to
the helpful and thoughtful submissions of Mr. Miller QC, for Professor Walker-Smith
and Miss Glynn QC (who did not appear below) for the GMC, the hearing has taken
only five days.
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