GMC v Dugboyele [2024] EWHC 2651 (Admin)

In GMC v Dugboyele, Murray J overturned a decision by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal (“the Tribunal”), which had determined that Dr Dugboyele’s fitness to practise was not impaired despite proven allegations of serious professional misconduct.

Dr Dugboyele was found to have engaged in repeated sexual harassment of female colleagues whilst employed at the Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust. The misconduct, spanning from 2016 to September 2020, persisted even after a formal written warning in March 2018 for “over-familiarity.”

The General Medical Council (“GMC”) and the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (“PSA”), appealed the Tribunal’s decision on five grounds, including:

GMC:

(i) When considering impairment, the Tribunal gave excessive weight to remediation and/or failed properly to consider or address in its reasoning the impact of no finding of impairment on (a) public confidence in the medical profession and/or (b) proper professional standards and conduct.

(iii) The Tribunal’s conclusion, that a finding of impairment was not necessary to uphold the overarching objective, was wrong.

PSA:

(i) The Tribunal wrongly failed to address the evidence of Dr Dugboyele’s motive for his misconduct, consequently failing to consider its significance for the issue of impairment of fitness to practise and, in turn, the appropriate sanction.

In addressing the GMC’s grounds, Murray J found that the Tribunal had failed to properly consider the broader public interest. He found that the Tribunal neglected the second and third limbs of the overarching objective—maintaining public confidence and ensuring professional standards. Relying on Yeong v GMC [2009] EWHC 1923 (Admin) and GMC v Chaudhary [2017] EWHC 2561 (Admin), he reiterated that even where remediation reduces future risks, a finding of impairment may still be warranted.

Murray J also accepted the GMC’s argument that sexual harassment does not involve technical or clinical nuances that would afford the Tribunal superior expertise over an appellate court.

Turning to the PSA’s submission, Murray J rejected Dr Dugboyele’s claim that his conduct was motivated by “friendliness,” describing it as being incapable of belief. He criticised the Tribunal’s concession that it was not alleging sexual motivation, describing that concession as “more than somewhat surprising” considering the protracted and targeted nature of the misconduct. He concluded:

“Dr Dugboyele’s whole course of conduct over a number of years against more than half a dozen junior female colleagues makes it more likely than not that most, if not all, of the other instances of Dr Dugboyele’s serious professional misconduct … were sexually motivated.”

Mr Justice Murray substituted a finding of impairment and remitted the case to a differently constituted Tribunal for it to consider the question of sanction.

Implications

The Tribunal had placed significant weight on Dr Dugboyele’s remediation and low risk of repetition, underestimating the importance of the public interest as defined at section 1B of the Medical Act 1983 (‘the Act”).

Both the GMC and PSA successfully argued that there must be a robust regulatory response to sexual misconduct given its profound impact on trust in the medical profession. The court is prepared to intervene to ensure that serious professional misconduct is met with an appropriate regulatory response, reaffirming the primacy of the GMC’s overarching objective to protect the public (s1A of the Act). More troubling still is that the court, on appeal, found the conduct to be sexually motivated — despite this not being pleaded by the GMC, which had, in fact, conceded that it was not their case. Arguably, proper particularisation would have required this to be framed as a specific allegation and for the matter to be remitted to a new tribunal for determination.

Jack Gilliland