Dr Abhishek Singh v General Dental Council

On an appeal from a professional disciplinary decision, the court may interfere with factual findings where the issue is evaluative and the conclusion is undermined by the evidence or by an internal inconsistency. A dishonesty assessment requires the tribunal first to establish the individual’s actual knowledge or belief and then to apply the objective standards of ordinary decent people. A finding that conduct was misleading cannot stand where it depends on access to records which the tribunal simultaneously found had not been proved to exist or be accessible. Where quashed findings materially affected the sanction, the sanction must be reconsidered on the revised factual basis.

Dr Singh appealed under section 29 of the Dentists Act 1984 against findings by the General Dental Council’s Professional Conduct Committee that his conduct was misleading and dishonest, and against the resulting order for erasure and immediate suspension. The disputed findings concerned an email describing his work at a dental practice between 2013 and 2017 and a later voicemail stating that he had no access to remaining patient records.

The appeal raised whether the PCC had correctly applied the dishonesty test, whether its findings were logically and procedurally sustainable, and whether erasure could stand after any successful challenge to those findings.

1. Appeal allowed on Grounds 1 and 2. The findings concerning Charge 7(b), dishonesty in the 30 June 2023 email, and Charge 9(a), misleading conduct in the 25 October 2023 voicemail, were quashed.
2. The appeal under section 29 was by way of rehearing, understood as a reanalysis of the evidence rather than a fresh hearing of live witnesses. Appropriate weight was due to the specialist tribunal, but deference was moderated where the court was concerned with evaluative judgment rather than primary credibility findings. The approach was supported by Sastry, Byrne and Wasu.
3. The PCC correctly identified the Ivey test: it had to establish subjectively Dr Singh’s actual knowledge or belief as to the facts and then apply the objective standards of ordinary decent people. The state of mind of the registrant was critical in regulatory proceedings.
4. Ground 1 succeeded because the PCC failed to take account of Dr Singh’s earlier admission to the Interim Orders Committee that he had treated Patient A between 2019 and 2021. The Working Arrangements Form did not ask for details of individual patient treatment. In those circumstances, omission of a fact already disclosed to the regulator, and not requested again, could not sustain the finding that the email was dishonest.
5. Ground 2 succeeded because the PCC’s findings were contradictory. It found that the GDC had not proved that records existed which Dr Singh could access and provide, yet treated the same asserted lack of access as misleading. Access to the records was a precondition of both charges. The PCC also substituted a different allegation, namely failure to explain why records could not be accessed, for the charge actually brought.
6. The quashed findings had formed a central part of the rationale for erasure. The case was therefore remitted to the PCC to reconsider sanction on the revised factual matrix. The court expressed no view on whether erasure or suspended registration would ultimately be appropriate.

• High Court (Administrative Court): Appeal from the Professional Conduct Committee of the General Dental Council allowed on Grounds 1 and 2. The relevant findings were quashed and sanction was remitted for reconsideration.
• Professional Conduct Committee: Found impairment by misconduct, including misleading and dishonest conduct, and directed erasure from the register.