Abusara-Darwich v General Dental Council

Questions on a professional restoration form must be read as a whole and in their practical context. Separate answers which are literally accurate may nevertheless be misleading and dishonest when, taken together, they convey that the applicant has not worked anywhere.

An appellate court should rarely interfere with a professional disciplinary body’s assessment of sanction merely because it would attach different weight to the evidence. However, remission is appropriate where a potentially material mitigating fact was repeatedly advanced but not investigated or considered. This includes evidence that information withheld from the regulator had already been disclosed to an employer, which may affect whether there was a cover-up and whether erasure is proportionate.

This was a statutory appeal by a dentist against findings and sanction imposed by the Professional Conduct Committee of the General Dental Council following a two-day hearing on 12 February 2016.

The appellant had been removed from the register after failing to pay his retention fee and later applied for restoration. He ticked “no” to questions asking whether he had worked as a dentist in the United Kingdom or abroad while unregistered, and to a question about criminal convictions. He later disclosed one drink-driving conviction but omitted another when replying to an email from the GDC.

The appeal challenged findings that the answers and omission were dishonest, and the sanction of erasure. The central issues were whether the committee had properly understood the form and whether the sanction decision had taken account of the appellant’s asserted disclosure of both convictions to his employers.

1. Findings concerning work while unregistered. The committee had not treated the Isle of Man as part of the United Kingdom. Read together, the questions about work in the United Kingdom and work abroad required the applicant to disclose whether he had worked anywhere in the world while unregistered. Although the answer to the United Kingdom question was literally correct, ticking “no” to both questions was capable of misleading the person processing the form. The finding of dishonesty in relation to the answers therefore stood.
2. Omission from the later email. The GDC’s question about other cautions or convictions was somewhat ineptly drafted, but the appellant’s case was that the omission was an oversight, not that he had misunderstood the question. The committee had heard and rejected that evidence. It was entitled to find that the omission was deliberate and, given the appellant’s knowledge of his convictions and duty to disclose them, dishonest.
3. Sanction. The court would rarely interfere with a professional body’s assessment of the weight to be given to insight, remorse and similar matters. The committee had treated the dishonesty as persistent and as a cover-up, and erasure was not held to be unjustified or disproportionate.
4. Remission. The appellant had repeatedly asserted that he had informed his employers of both convictions. The committee had not addressed that evidence or its possible relevance. If true, the disclosure could be relevant to whether there had been a cover-up and could constitute mitigation, even though the convictions had not been reported directly to the GDC. The sanction issue was therefore remitted to the Professional Conduct Committee to investigate the matter and reconsider whether erasure was necessary and appropriate. There was no order as to costs.

The judgment does not state a prior appellate decision. It records a statutory appeal from findings and sanction imposed by the Professional Conduct Committee of the General Dental Council on 12 February 2016. The findings appeal was dismissed, while the sanction of erasure was remitted for reconsideration.