Peckitt v The General Medical Council & Anor

Where legislation permits a professional conduct committee to adopt findings made by another regulator, the committee may rely on those findings and need not reopen them without a sensible basis for doing so. An extension of the 28-day period for appealing a disciplinary determination is exceptional. The appellant must personally have done all that could reasonably be done within time, including paying the required fee or filing any fee-remission application. Substantial delay after the deadline may itself defeat an extension, whether or not the application is analysed as relief from sanctions. Permission should be refused where the proposed appeal has no real prospect of success.

Professor Peckitt, a consultant oral and maxillofacial surgeon registered with both the GMC and GDC, sought permission to appeal two orders made by Kerr J on 21 April 2016. One order endorsed Leggatt J’s refusal to reinstate an appeal against the MPTS decision erasing him from the medical register. The other dismissed his in-time appeal against the GDC decision erasing him from the dental register, which relied partly on the MPTS findings and included findings of dishonesty.

He argued that the GDC could not rely on the MPTS determination, that its findings were wrong, and that time should be extended for the MPTS appeal because he had lodged documents within 28 days but had not paid the fee. The central issues concerned the statutory power to adopt findings and whether exceptional circumstances justified extending time.

1. Disposition. The application for permission to appeal was refused. An appeal against either disciplinary decision had no real prospect of success.
2. Reliance on MPTS findings. Section 27 and paragraph 5 of Schedule 3 to the Dentists Act 1984 plainly entitled the Professional Conduct Committee to adopt findings made by the MPTS. Even if the committee had power to look behind those findings, there was no sensible basis for doing so. Professor Peckitt had not attended or been represented at the MPTS hearing, but that circumstance did not justify reopening findings which the committee was entitled to adopt.
3. Dishonesty finding. On the materials before it, the GDC was plainly entitled to conclude that certain statements made by Professor Peckitt were dishonest.
4. Merits of the punching allegation. The MPTS had evidence capable of supporting the allegation that Professor Peckitt had punched a patient. In the absence of any participation by him at the hearing, it was difficult to suppose that a court could conclude that the MPTS was not entitled to find the allegation proved. Any appeal on that issue would have had very slim prospects.
5. Extension of time. The discretion to extend the 28-day appeal period was available only in exceptional circumstances and where the appellant personally had done all he could to bring the appeal in time. Practice Direction 52B paragraph 4.1 confirmed that an appellant’s notice had to be accompanied by the appropriate fee or, where applicable, a fee-remission application or certificate. Lodging the documents without paying the fee was insufficient.
6. Delay. Professor Peckitt had not shown that payment could not have been made on the final day of the period. In any event, the seven-month delay between the court’s letter closing the file and the extension application was highly material and negated the possibility of extending time, whether the matter was approached through relief-from-sanctions principles or otherwise.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): On 6 March 2018, Lord Justice Newey refused permission to appeal. Order: application refused.
2. High Court of Justice: On 21 April 2016, Kerr J dismissed the appeal against the GDC decision and endorsed Leggatt J’s refusal to reinstate the appeal against the MPTS determination.