Climate Activism Doctor’s Appeal Against Suspension

A retired good and committed, well-liked general practitioner who worked in the NHS for over 30 years had been, until 2019, a thoroughly law-abiding citizen and had never come to her regulator’s attention, but then following her entry into climate activism committed a series of offences for which she was prosecuted.

They all involved non-violent but unlawful acts committed through Extinction Rebellion. For each offence the doctor was conditionally discharged. She was arrested again in 2021 for obstructing the highway during a climate protest. She self-reported to the General Medical Council. The case examiners closed the 2019 matters with advice. The 2021 arrest was deemed not to meet the threshold for formal investigation.

During 2022 the doctor took part in peaceful climate protests and, in April 2022, a High Court injunction was issued restraining protests at the Kingsbury Oil Terminal. In deliberate contravention of the injunction the doctor took part in a protest involving the obstruction of the access road into and out of the Terminal. She was arrested, brought before the court and bailed on condition that she complied with the terms of the injunction. The doctor failed to answer her bail but instead engaged in another protest whereby she and about 10 others stood on the grass verge outside the Terminal holding placards and banners. She was arrested again and spent a week in custody before being returned to court. After eight days in custody, no further order was made.

In September 2022 the doctor engaged in another protest at the Terminal when more than 50 people attended. Having refused to leave, the protesters were arrested and the doctor subsequently served a sentence of 32 days imprisonment.

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal acknowledged the doctor’s sincere beliefs and passion about climate change but concluded that her conduct fell so far short of the standards reasonably to be expected of a doctor as to amount to misconduct which was serious.

Finding that the doctor’s fitness to practise was impaired, the Tribunal determined that a suspension for five months was proportionate to the misconduct and would allow adequate time for the development of insight and remediation. The Tribunal further directed that there should be a review hearing shortly before the end of the suspension when the onus would be on the doctor to demonstrate that matters had changed so that her fitness to practise was no longer impaired.

On appeal to the High Court, the doctor sought to rely on fresh evidence which was not before the Tribunal: Benn v General Medical Council [2025] EWHC 87 (Admin)   Yip J

Concluding that it was appropriate to admit all the evidence which was the subject of the doctor’s application, her Ladyship said that she had considered the use which could properly be made of all of the material which she had admitted de bene esse when analysing the merits of the appeal.

If the additional material showing support for the doctor had been available at the time, the court considered that the Tribunal would have considered it and her Ladyship would not exclude it on the first limb of Ladd v Marshall [1954] 1 WLR 2318. The material did not come into existence until after the hearing, was not actively sought by the doctor or her representatives but rather emerged in response to the decision.

The additional material which was not before the Tribunal included a petition which had accumulated further signatures so that the total stood at over 6,000 by the date of filing of the doctor’s skeleton argument; emails from ten individuals, some of whom were medical professionals, received by the GMC following the decision; correspondence between the BMA and the GMC in which the BMA expressed concern over the doctor’s suspension; a statement issued by the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change on the day the decision was published; another statement issued the same day by the Doctors Association UK; a letter from Greener Practice to the GMC; an unpublished article entitled Public Perception of Climate Activism and Fitness to Practice among Healthcare Professionals.

None of this material had been solicited by the doctor. It showed genuine support for her amongst members of the profession and members of the public. To a large extent it consisted of opinion evidence including opinion on the merits of the Tribunal’s decision.

The court agreed with Rory Dunlop KC for the General Medical Council that this was not something to be encouraged. Many high-profile cases attracted comment and generally an appeal court would not be assisted by consideration of statements of opinion about whether a decision was right or wrong. Indeed, that was likely only to distract from the dispassionate analysis of the law and the application to the facts which was required on appeal.

The issues that arose on the appeal included consideration of the impact of the doctor’s conduct on public confidence and of appropriate professional standards for conduct outside medical practice.

The essential question was whether the Tribunal was right to find that the doctor’s conduct fell so far short of the standards of conduct reasonably to be expected of a doctor such that they amounted to misconduct in the statutory sense. It was clear from her own evidence that the doctor intended to act in a way that did not meet the standards of behaviour to be expected of a doctor. That was a deliberate part of her tactics. She referred to the need for something “eye-catching”, actions which were “more visible and potentially upsetting to the public” than conduct limited to that which was non-disruptive and entirely legal.

Although the court disagreed with some of the Tribunal’s reasoning, it considered that the Tribunal was ultimately right to conclude that this was misconduct in the statutory sense.

The finding that the doctor’s fitness to practise was impaired was not based merely on historical wrongdoing which fell below the standards of personal conduct expected of a doctor but also took account of the doctor’s stated intention to continue to behave in the same way. In the court’s judgment it was not wrong to regard the doctor’s conduct in repeatedly breaching the injunction (to the extent that she was imprisoned) and her stated intention to continue to act outside the law as being incompatible with her status as a member of the profession, whatever her motivations for that.

Upholding the Tribunal’s decision that the doctor’s fitness to practise was impaired through misconduct the court considered that suspension for a period of five months with a review hearing to be convened shortly before the end of that period was a necessary and proportionate response.