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	England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions >> Aaalamani, R (on the application of) v General Medical Council [2006] EWHC 1277 (Admin) (09 May 2006) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2006/1277.html Cite as: [2006] EWHC 1277 (Admin)

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IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2A 2LL
		9 May 2006

1. MR JUSTICE COLLINS: This is an appeal by Dr Aaalamani against a decision of the General Medical Council's relevant panel that he should be suspended from the Register for a period of 12 months.
2. The appellant has not attended court to pursue the appeal. A question arose at an earlier stage when he was still awaiting a hearing before the GMC which was the address to which documents should be sent. The one that he gave the court was care of a gentleman called Mr F Moshiry of 83 Fletcher Road, London W4 5AU. As a result of some extraordinary correspondence, it would appear from someone in Israel, the GMC queried with him whether that was still the address which should be used, and, on 2 February 2005 he confirmed that that was indeed so and he gave that address when lodging this appeal.
3. The court sent the usual letter on 17 March 2006 notifying the parties of the date of the hearing, and the letter to the appellant was sent to that address. He was then notified that the matter was listed for hearing today.
4. In fact he did not attend the hearing before the panel on 22 July last year against which he now seeks to appeal. He indicated - because he had sought to appeal to the Privy Council at an earlier stage - that the reason he was not attending these matters was because he had been advised by the Israeli Intelligence Services that he should not do so and he had taken the view that the GMC were engaged in a campaign of persecution against him and it would appear from the extraordinary document that he has produced (described as a skeleton argument) that he feels that the lawyers, and indeed to some extent the court, has joined in that sort of conspiracy.
5. In those circumstances, it is perhaps not surprising that he has not attended today and I am satisfied that he has been properly served and therefore it is right that I should deal with his appeal in his absence.
6. I can give reasons for dismissing it, because it has no merit whatever, relatively briefly. The appellant himself is now some 64 years old, having been born in October 1942. He is Iranian by origin. He came to this country in 1984 and began to practice as a consultant psychiatrist. He was approved in 1993 for five years under section 12(2) of the Mental Health Act 1983.
7. In 2001 some complaints were made about him to the General Medical Council and, as a result of that, in September 2001 he was invited to submit to an assessment of the standard of his professional performance under the relevant rules then in force. Broadly speaking, the complaints amounted to assertions that his medical knowledge, in particular his knowledge of the Mental Health Act procedures, was poor. He accepted the invitation to submit to the assessment and it was carried out in the normal way in January/February 2002. As a result, the assessors took the view that there were immediate issues of public safety that needed to be addressed, and accordingly the Interim Orders Committee (as it then was) met on 18 March 2002 and considered whether it was necessary to make an interim order under section 41(a)(i) of the Medical Act. It was decided that it was necessary to make such an order and conditions were imposed upon his ability to continue to practice. Those conditions were that he had to practise under supervision; that he must notify the secretary at the GMC in writing of the arrangements for supervision and provide the name of the supervising practitioner; that he would have to produce evidence that he was approved under section 12 of the Mental Health Act and that he must notify all employers or prospective employers and local agencies, of the conditions imposed. Those conditions were to run for a period of 18 months.
8. The appellant commenced judicial review proceedings against that decision in May 2002. But before those were heard, on 13 December 2002 the Interim Orders Committee met and reviewed the order that it made and varied the conditions which it had imposed. There were, in fact, three judicial review proceedings by then which had been launched by the appellant but those were stayed pending the determination of his appeal to the Privy Council from a decision of the Committee on Professional Performance. The Privy Council delivered its decision on 22 January 2003. The decision was based upon an application by the GMC for dismissal of his appeal for non-prosecution because he had failed to lodge his case within the time limit.
9. The appellant did not attend the hearing before the CPP but that Committee had decided again that there should be conditions imposed and those conditions were to last for a period of three years. As the Privy Council indicated, two of those conditions were of particular importance; namely, that he was to complete a programme of structured retraining under the educational supervision of the training approved by the Postgraduate Dean and that he was to confine his medical practice to National Health Service hospital training grade posts, where his work would be closely supervised by a consultant, approved by his trainer.
10. The Privy Council decided that there was no point of law which would be open to him to argue before them and that there was no possibility that he would be able to rely on any ground of appeal which had the slightest prospect of success, and accordingly the appeal was dismissed. The formal order was made on 2 February 2003.
11. There then followed some extraordinary correspondence from a gentleman in Israel called Dr Khakpour. I describe it as extraordinary: it is not necessary to go into the detail, perhaps a flavour of it can be indicated by noting that what was said was that all members and administrators of the GMC and their respective first degree relatives had been subjected to sine die suspension which was published on the internet by a competent authority. That included GMC solicitors and barristers. It was said that Dr Khakpour was apparently a representative of Mossad.
12. In any event, following further correspondence, there was a hearing before the Fitness to Practise Panel on 22 July 2005. The appellant did not attend but the decision, so far as material, was that he had not complied with the conditions which required him to undertake the necessary retraining. The relevant conditions which he had breached and which had been imposed in September 2002 were those I have referred to in the decision of the Privy Council. He has not complied with any of those and there is no suggestion made by him that he has. It follows, in the light of that and in the light of the history of this matter and the complaints that have been made against the appellant, that the panel was fully justified in deciding that it was necessary to suspend him from the Register.
13. Nothing that he has raised in his skeleton argument, most of which is entirely irrelevant and indeed shows a very strange frame of mind, suggests that there is any ground for appealing against that decision. In the circumstances, I think I need do no more than confirm that this appeal is totally without merit and is dismissed with costs.
14. MR WEISSELBERG: My lord, do you have a copy of the costs schedule?
15. MR JUSTICE COLLINS: Yes.
16. MR WEISSELBERG: In relation to attendance at hearing my instructing solicitors have put down four hours, being the amount of time that the court listed the matter for. Obviously a deduction needs to be made in respect of the hearing running much shorter, and that would reduce the ---
17. MR JUSTICE COLLINS: What is the total?
18. MR WEISSELBERG: The total, my Lord, is just over £4,000.
19. MR JUSTICE COLLINS: That is the figure of £4,088.05.
20. MR WEISSELBERG: My Lord, it is. If one takes off the £315 that would be allowed for an attendance and hearing, one gets a figure of £3,773.
21. MR JUSTICE COLLINS: £3,773?
22. MR WEISSELBERG: Yes, my Lord, £3,773.
23. MR JUSTICE COLLINS: That seems to me to be a reasonable sum, looking at the material here, and the need to produce the bundle, because the appellant did not do what he should have done. In that case I will make an order that the appeal be dismissed with costs to be assessed in the sum of £3,773. I think I have to give him the opportunity to make representations against that amount, and he can do that within 21 days in writing, if he wishes to do so. He must serve any representations on you. You have 14 days thereafter if he does make representations to put in writing anything in reply and I will consider the matter on the papers.
24. MR WEISSELBERG: So the sum would become payable within 21 day --
25. MR JUSTICE COLLINS: It will become payable within 21 days if he makes no representation; if he does then I will consider the amount.