Bias, Hearsay and More Besides – Moodliar v General Medical Council [2025] EWHC 913 (Admin) (16 April 2025)

The appeal of Dr Moodliar against the finding of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal that she had acted dishonestly, and its direction for her erasure from the register of doctors, raised a plethora of issues and makes useful reading in relation to them all.  The misconduct was in relation to the writing of an expert report and was comprehensive – including dishonesty, inadequate experience, and plagiarism (summarised at §113 of the Judgment).

The seven areas of challenge were:

1. The approach to the fact that there was evidence before the tribunal of an earlier tribunal’s finding of dishonesty.
2. Whether the tribunal should have recused itself
3. The tribunal’s approach to findings of fact and standard of proof
4. The reliance on hearsay evidence
5. The adequacy of the tribunal’s reasons for its findings of fact
6. Whether erasure should have been directed
7. Whether the tribunal erred in law as to the question of dishonesty.

The Judge dismissed entirely challenges in relation to the tribunal’s approach to its findings of fact – describing these grounds as “hopeless” (§69). The grounds on adequacy of reasons had “no merit” (§86) because the tribunal decision clearly identified the matters which were critical to its findings of fact, ditto the ground as to error of law on the dishonesty test.

Admissibility of earlier findings of dishonesty

In the proceedings under appeal, Dr Moodliar was found to have “accepted instructions to give evidence in a murder trial for which she did not have either the experience or training”. Among other things, she then wrote the report despite having spent insufficient time with the patient to do a proper assessment, dishonestly claimed to have spent 1½ hours with the patient, repeated that dishonesty under oath in the murder trial and dishonestly plagiarised another expert’s report and included some of it in her report.

Dr Moodliar was already under conditions following a previous tribunal hearing during which similar allegations including dishonest plagiarism in an expert report for a criminal trial.  That Order was due for review as part of the second hearing and the GMC agreed that the Tribunal would not be told anything about it until Stage 2.

After Dr Moodliar indicated that she was going to make full admissions to the charges relating to the murder trial, the papers for Stages 1 and 2 were combined and the Tribunal received material including the papers for the review of the previous findings.

In the event, having read Dr Moodliar’s 58-page witness statement, the Tribunal were concerned that the admissions were equivocal and that there would have to be a facts stage. By then they were already aware of the previous case.

Here, the Judge did find that mistakes were made by the GMC. Firstly, there was a failure to identify that the full admissions made were in tension with Dr Moodliar’s witness statement. If the GMC had identified this then the earlier finding could have been withheld from the panel until it had made its necessary factual findings. Secondly, counsel had continued to open the fact of a previous disciplinary case even after the tribunal had decided that it would have to hear evidence on the facts.

These criticisms were not sufficient to allow the appeal, however.  Dr Moodliar had been insistent that she was making full admissions, referred in her statement to previous findings of dishonesty, and attempted to introduce evidence of her good character.   The Judge drew attention to the legal position of there being no absolute rule that knowledge of prejudicial information is fatal to fairness but rather that the test is whether the risk of prejudice is so grave that no direction by a trial Judge could be expected to remove it (§50).  The Judge concluded that the chair “plotted a very careful and wise course” – neither directing as to propensity (which counsel for the GMC had raised but then backed away from) nor that Dr Moodliar was of good character, and not reading the bundle relating to the earlier dishonesty findings and giving assurances that the previous findings would not be taken into account while the tribunal made its own findings.

Dr Moodliar alleged that it was unfair that she had not been adequately warned by the GMC about the consequences of referring to the previous case, failing to redact references to it and seeking a good character reference. The Judge took the view that the stages had been explained and there was no further duty to provide Dr Moodliar with legal advice as to the conduct of her case, and it should have been obvious to Dr Moodliar that she ought not to give misleading evidence of good character against the background of previous findings of dishonesty in respect of  very similar allegations.

Recusal for bias

In relation to the recusal arguments the Judge’s analysis was based on the fair-minded and informed observer test as to apparent bias. The Judge concluded that the tribunal had correctly applied that test (although “the matter could have been put more clearly” (§63)).  The approach the tribunal had taken had demonstrated that it was not rushing to judgment but scrutinizing the facts, had not considered the material relating to the earlier findings and maintained that it was deciding the facts only on the evidence relating to the new allegations. He felt the hearing had been “conspicuously fair”.

Hearsay

The hearsay evidence relied upon went to the issue of the amount of time Dr Moodliar had spent with the patient in respect of whom she wrote her report. The Tribunal had received a statement from a police officer who testified that he had spoken to someone (unidentified) at Broadmoor, who in turn had spoken to a ward manager (unidentified) at the hospital and both suggested that Dr Moodliar had not been at the hospital for anything like the 90 minutes she claimed.

Had the hearsay evidence been the only evidence then the Judge would have had “deep reservations” as to reliance on it. However, Dr Moodliar had herself admitted in written and sworn evidence to the tribunal, as well as in testimony in the patient’s criminal trial, that the figure of 1 ½ hours was incorrect.

Erasure

The analysis of the Judge in relation to the erasure sanction grapples with the interesting tension between the assessment of insight and honesty with the tribunal (goes to remediation and mitigation) and the need not to found a finding of impairment upon a non-acceptance of impairment and/or imposing a more severe sanction based on a refusal to admit misconduct.  The Judge found that erasure was amply justified.