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From the Daily Telegraph this week ... A consultant psychiatrist is being investigated over claims that he distorted his assessment of patients to suit the demands of local authorities, it was reported last night. Dr.George Hibbert faces being struck off after he allegedly misdiagnosed parents as suffering from personality disorders. In one case, he is claimed to have concluded that a new mother, named only as Miss A, had bipolar disorder because the local social services department wanted her child to be adopted, according to the Daily Mail. Lawyers acting on behalf of Miss A confirmed that they had been instructed to begin proceedings against Dr Hibbert and the local authority. Paul Grant, of Bernard Chill & Axtell Solicitors, who represents Miss A, said: "We believe this distressing case may be the tip of a very big iceberg." John Hemming, the MP for Birmingham Yardley, who has raised concerns about Dr Hibbert in Parliament, said he had spoken to "three or four" other families who had had a similar experience. He has written to Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, demanding a full parliamentary inquiry. Referring to Dr Hibbert, Miss A said: "Nothing will ever make up for what he has done to me and my child." Mr Hemming told Parliament: "He [Dr Hibbert] is someone about whom a number of people have complained. I am told that at least one person has refused to work for him because of what she saw as his unethical provision of reports to suit the demands of local authorities." He added that experts such as Dr Hibbert, 59, were often little more than "the hired gun of the local authority". Dr.Hibbert charged local authorities £6,000 a week for every family in his care and £210 an hour to read documents such as medical records. His company, Assessment in Care, made a profit of around £460,000 in 2007 from its arrangement with social services. In a letter to Miss A, a GMC investigations officer said that Dr Hibbert "has now applied for voluntary erasure from the medical register". "He has no intention of returning to clinical practice in the future," the letter added. A spokesman for the Medical Protection Society, the indemnity organisation for doctors, said professional confidentiality meant that Dr.Hibbert was unable to comment on the allegations. Still, as they frequently say, “if saves the life of just one child ...” Here is some history of the General Medical Council's handling of this case, or at least public information requests relating to it ... WhatDoTheyKnow.com. It also relates to another so-called “expert”, one Dr.Anthony William Baker. Here's a snippet to get you started: One mother involved in family court proceedings told how a psychiatrist who had never seen her wrote a 14-page report on her and her family. The day after the psychiatrist signed off his report he was suspended by the General Medical Council for a separate offence. Despite this, his report was still used by the courts. ‘He’s never seen us, never spoken to us,’ she said, ‘and yet he’s ended up writing 14 pages, with recommendations, that he could not possibly have made if he had spoken to any of us or had he read through the court papers.’ She said her custody case dragged on for five years because of the competing testimonies of no fewer than eight expert witnesses. ‘The court system in England is barbaric,’ she said. Yes, we'll drink to that. While looking up this story on the internet, we stumbled across this website. There is also a remarkably complete and well-written account of the same case on the website of the Palestine Telegraph, of all places. Frankly we don't know what to make of it. If it is true, it is an absolutely shattering story and deserves to be given the widest possible publicity. It even has a bearing on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Here's just one sentence about Hollie Grieg, a Down's Syndrome girl who, it is claimed, was abused by a paedophile ring that included members of the police and judiciary: “It was only in 2009, when the News Of The World courageously broke the story, concentrating on the hitherto unheard of fact that Hollie had received payments from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority for crimes that have not even been investigated.” If it's NOT true, it constitutes an astonishing libel on a number of people. All in all, a website worth examining. The GOS says: Can I bring to your attention this phrase from the Telegraph report: “according to the Daily Mail”? Are we to conclude from this that the Telegraph has stooped so low as to borrow stories from the gutter press? What is the world coming to? Jesus wept, can't they be arsed to write their own stuff any more? Oh, and before some clever dick writes in to point out that I do exactly the same thing, there is a major difference: they're PAID to write stories and have all the resources of a major newspaper behind them - I do it for nothing, and have no resources at all except what I find on the net. So go and boil your head. either on this site or on the World Wide Web. Copyright © 2012 The GOS |
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