WHILE there are several doctors who have not lost their medical licences for sexual offences including rape, harassment and paedophilia, another has been struck off for ‘hurty’ words exchanged on social media. Critics say the real reason he was erased is that he engaged in online spats that highlighted vaccine injury.
Dr David Cartland, 42, a GP practising in Cornwall, was investigated by the General Medical Council (GMC) after three doctors, granted anonymity, and a practice manager accused him of harassment on the social media platforms X, Instagram and Gettr. Another charge of dishonesty was brought for writing covid vaccination exemption certificates when not clinically warranted, and he was accused of abusing the LBGTQ+ community. Last week 17 allegations against Dr Cartland were found proven by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS). They decided he was guilty of serious misconduct and that he should immediately be ‘erased’ from the medical register.
This reflects the current trend of those found guilty of online abuse being handed harsher sentences than criminals who commit harmful crimes. Childminder Lucy Connolly, 51, was sentenced to 31 months last October for a racist tweet after the Southport murder of three young girls, while GP Dr Alan Trevor Campbell from County Londonderry was sentenced to just 75 hours community service for possessing more than 200 indecent images of children. The photographs and videos found on Dr Campbell’s six devices were in the categories A, B and C. The most serious, A, involved sexual activity, the rape of a four-year-old boy, and sadism.
In contrast, Dr Cartland was a covid harms whistleblower who felt a moral duty to inform people, especially pregnant women and parents of young children, of vaccine harms and other covid abuses, including that the injections do not work and can cause disability and death, that cases were exaggerated, there was no informed consent and covid as a cause of death was prioritised on death certificates over a patient’s long-term co-morbidities. He used X, where he has more than 300,000 followers, as his main form of communication, attracting many trolls and criticisms from other doctors whom he criticised back. The exchanges were often likened to playground spats, with both sides giving as good as they got, but the MPTS did not allow him to submit evidence against the three complainants.
Dr Cartland was reported to the GMC by a TV doctor, known as Dr B, who pushed covid vaccinations and took money from AstraZeneca to promote their flu vaccine, and a consultant obstetrician known as Dr A with a special interest in vaccinating during pregnancy. She and her team received a £250,000 grant to promote vaccinations to mothers-to-be. Dr C, a PhD sheep farmer, attacked anyone with a high profile questioning the official covid narrative. He boasted he was engaged in psyops for the 77th Brigade.
Dr Cartland, who received zero patient complaints and was said by his counsel Paul Diamond KC to be a ‘fine’ doctor, is distraught at being struck off. Luckily, he survived an overdose suicide attempt at the weekend, his second. He had considered taking his life during his hearing in October last year, but police persuaded him not to.
Meanwhile, senior GP Dr Peter Rubin, who ran a doctor’s surgery near Abingdon, Oxfordshire, was suspended for a second time in October last year. Details have not been released on the reasons for his second suspension, but an investigation is continuing. He was first suspended for having sex with a patient on Christmas Eve, 2007, in his surgery in Didcot. He then prescribed her the morning-after pill and harassed her with texts and inappropriate comments. Although the MPTS said his conduct was ‘dishonest and sexually motivated’ and that he was found to have brought the profession into disrepute, they did not strike him off. MPTS chair Dr Peter Jefferys said there was no ‘significant risk’ of him repeating his misconduct and suspended him for 12 months. That suspension was reviewed in April 2015, and although the panel was ‘not satisfied’ that Dr Rubin had gained ‘full insight’, they did not extend the suspension, and he was allowed to return to work.
The MPTS did not erase Dr Aloaye Foy-Yamah, a consultant at Blackpool Victoria Hospital, after he raped a young woman at this home. His licence was suspended for the maximum period of 12 months as the panel described the rape as a ‘one-off’ attack. Police investigated but did not charge Dr Foy-Yamah, who denied the rape. The GMC, who regulate licenced doctors in the UK, asked the MPTS, the independent panel who hear fitness to practise cases and are responsible for issuing sanctions, to erase Dr Foy-Yamah’s licence permanently. The MPTS panel refused, saying he had not ‘abused his position of trust as a doctor’ because the victim was not a patient. The doctor has appealed against his suspension.
Transplant surgeon Dr James Gilbert was a senior registrar then consultant for Oxford University Hospitals. He was described as the ‘golden boy’ of the transplant department – the ‘be-all and end-all for transplants in Oxford’. But he indulged in old-school sexual harassment and four female colleagues complained. He told one female trainee: ‘You’re a well put together girl, you must always wear matching underwear. What kind are you wearing now?’ Another was also asked about matching underwear and told: ‘I have been watching you and you’re pretty perfect.’ Initially suspended for eight months, his suspension was later extended to 12 months. Even the GMC were disappointed he did not lose his licence and said his suspension was ‘insufficient to protect the public’. He was dismissed from the hospital in May 2022 but not erased from the medical register.
Gynaecologist Dr Ali Shokouh-Amiri faced more than 100 allegations from patients. More than 70 were related to sexually motivated misconduct at the Princess Elizabeth Hospital in Guernsey in 2017 and 2018. He removed the ovaries of two women without their consent and conducted intimate solo examinations on others. He admitted touching one patient’s clitoris, kissing and hugging another and rubbing a third patient’s leg. The MPTS ruled he was at ‘low risk of putting patients at a risk of unwarranted harm’ and gave him a warning. Dr Shokouh-Amiri then moved to a hospital in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, where in February this year 14,000 patients signed a petition asking for him to be struck off. He is still practising.
In several cases, the GMC consider the MPTS’s sanctions too lenient. They have asked for appeals in the cases of Dr Shokouh-Amiri, Dr Foy-Yamah and Dr Gilbert and hope they will be erased from the medical register.
Meanwhile, Dr Cartland is raising money to fund his appeal – you can contribute here. Fighting the charges has so far cost him nearly £80,000, his marriage, and almost his life. Some call the case brought against him vexatious. Others say it is lawfare, the strategic use of legal proceedings to intimidate and disable an adversary, as well as a waste of taxpayers’ money and an assault on free speech.
