A Spalding doctor’s High Court Appeal against his suspension over inappropriate behaviour has been dismissed.
Former army officer Dr Graham Wheatley, of the Munro Medical Centre, was due to be suspended for six weeks after the ruling of a Medical Practioners Tribunal in 2023.
The tribunal decided Dr Wheatley’s fitness to practice was impaired after an incident at a social event in 2021.
Dr Wheatley engaged in inappropriate behaviour towards a colleague at a conference where he touched Ms A’s bottom several times, the tribunal was told.
He had been attending a three-day residential conference and the tribunal said it had been found proved that his actions had been ‘sexually motivated’ and ‘amounted to sexual harassment.’
Following the original hearing by the tribunal in 2023, Dr Wheatley claimed the allegation was ‘entirely malicious’ and said he would appeal the decision.
That hearing was at the High Court in London in January and was presided over by Mrs Justice Foster who dismissed the appeal.
Dr Wheatley had challenged the factual conclusions of the tribunal hearing on two grounds:
l they were not supported by adequate reasoning and
l the conclusions were outwith the findings of a reasonable tribunal.
“Dr Wheatley’s case is that the inconsistencies in and adequacy of the evidence led by the General Medical Council were such that the Medical Practitioners Tribunal could not properly have been sure on he balance of probabilities that he had behaved as was alleged.”
The High Court dismissed the appeal and found that the original tribunal had not made any errors in factual analyses or reasoning.
Dr Dudley Graham, in his statement for the inquiry, said he had known Dr Wheatley for 25 years and Ms A for around ten years.
He said that at the time of the incident, Dr Wheatley had been “drunk and swaying” and “fairly incoherent.”
“As he approached, he reached out towards (Ms A) with his left had and eventually made contact with her buttock. I had plain view of this. I recall (Ms A) immediately asking him to stop. I no longer remember her exact words, but I could tell by the way she said what she said, that she was shocked and that she didn’t like Graham touching her buttock.”
The tribunal found Ms A to be a credible witness and had rejected Dr Wheatley’s account that the touching was accidental.
“The tribunal accepted Ms A as a credible witness as she had given a generally consistent account which was unlikely to have been affected by excessive alcohol consumption,” said the judgment documentation from the High Court.
It also upheld the tribunal’s decision to suspend Dr Wheatley for six weeks.
“The tribunal was satisfied that the misconduct which it had found was remediable, had been substantially remedied and the likelihood of repetition was very low.
“It was for these reasons no doubt that the sanction upon Dr Wheatley was in the terms that it was, and which must now take effect. The appeal must be dismissed,” says the judgment.
