Dr Muhammad Asad Haroon v General Medical Council

On an appeal against professional sanction, the court must decide for itself whether the sanction was appropriate and necessary in the public interest, while giving appropriate deference to the specialist tribunal.

GMC sanctions guidance requires a fact-sensitive and proportionate assessment. Violence is capable of indicating that erasure is appropriate, but the guidance creates no automatic hierarchy or mandatory sanction. Denial of misconduct cannot itself justify a greater sanction or establish lack of insight. However, the registrant’s attitude to the underlying conduct is relevant to insight, future risk and remediation.

Where serious repeated violence, limited insight, inadequate remediation and continuing risk make registration fundamentally incompatible with public protection and confidence, erasure may be proportionate.

The appellant, a doctor, appealed under section 40 of the Medical Act 1983 against the Medical Practitioners Tribunal’s decision to erase his name from the medical register.

The MPT had found his fitness to practise impaired following his conviction for controlling or coercive behaviour against his wife. The appellant accepted the conviction but denied the underlying violence. He challenged sanction only, arguing that suspension was appropriate because of his mitigation, career and asserted remediation.

The central issues were whether the MPT had properly applied the sanctions guidance, assessed aggravating and mitigating factors, evaluated denial and insight, and concluded that erasure rather than suspension was necessary and proportionate.

1. Appeal dismissed. The High Court applied the approach in Sastry v GMC: it had to exercise its own judgment on whether the sanction was wrong, while giving appropriate deference to the MPT’s specialist determination.
2. The sanctions guidance was practical and non-exhaustive. It required a proportionate, fact-sensitive assessment beginning with the least restrictive sanction. It did not establish a hierarchy placing violence below dishonesty, predatory behaviour or sexual misconduct. Violence was expressly capable of indicating that erasure was appropriate.
3. The MPT had not treated denial of the offending as automatically equivalent to lack of insight. Denial could not itself increase sanction, but the appellant’s attitude to the underlying conduct was relevant to assessing insight, future risk and remediation. The MPT was entitled to find that the appellant had only limited insight.
4. The MPT properly considered the repeated violence, aggravating circumstances, limited insight, insufficiently personal remediation, continuing risk and the effect on public confidence. Its consideration of paragraph 148 of the guidance and paragraph 65 of Good Medical Practice involved immaterial errors.
5. The MPT was entitled to conclude that the conviction and impairment were fundamentally incompatible with continued registration. Suspension would not sufficiently protect the public or uphold confidence and professional standards. Erasure was appropriate, necessary, and neither excessive nor disproportionate.

• Medical Practitioners Tribunal: found the appellant’s fitness to practise impaired following his criminal conviction and directed erasure from the medical register on 3 April 2025.
• High Court (Administrative Court): dismissed the appeal under section 40 of the Medical Act 1983 and declined to interfere with the sanction.