LORD ROBERT WINSTON SCANDAL

Part 1 of 2

Lord Robert Winston Scandal – a Rapist??

THE STORY. This tells how Professor Lord Robert Winston is guilty of deliberately destroying the reproductive career of one of his patients over a period of one year. He is an attending physician who falsified the patient’s hospital medical documents and subjected her to a totally unnecessary operation in order to camouflage his previous, deliberately falsified diagnosis, of a diseased uterus.

He did all this with the sole purpose of destroying the reproductive medicine career of a rival IVF specialist doctor (Dr Jack Gilliat aka Glatt) who used to work with him for several years in his once weekly infertility clinic at London’s Hammersmith Hospital in the early 90’s. His only conceivable motive was spite and jealousy related to Dr JG’s IVF successes in the early days of this highly specialised, competitive field. See what you think as this previously untold story unfolds. Dr JG is completely unaware of any aspect of the telling of this.

The Actors

Lord Winston is the most famous attending physician and leading infertility specialist in the UK. He is a household name as he is a charismatic speaker. He has presented multiple UK television series related to medicine to a world-wide audience. His infertility team was the third in the UK to achieve IVF success. Winston has authored several books and hundreds of research papers. He was made a British Lord of the Realm in 1995 – hence Professor Lord Robert Winston.

Philipa is an infertility patient who was, at first, fully investigated for her problem by her attending physician, Dr Trevor Dutt, who headed the infertility clinic at the Royal Northern Hospital in London. Dr Dutt performed an initial laparoscopy and dye insufflation test on her as well as a hysterosalpingogram (HSG) x-ray of the uterus both of which did not demonstrate any significant uterine problems though did reveal a damaged fallopian tube. Philipa subsequently failed to conceive following a course of standard infertility treatments for which reason Dr Dutt then referred her to an infertility specialist for IVF – Dr Jack Gilliat ( Dr JG; – he had changed his last name from Glatt to Gilliat at the time of his first

Dr JG states that he was the first in the UK to achieve IVF success entirely within the private sector. He was the 1^st to open a second IVF center – in Birmingham, and the 1^st to open a third IVF center – in Leeds (1990). Two other centers were due to open within the following year in Newcastle and Torbay. His clinics’ IVF and other fees were by far the lowest in the UK and had the highest success rate in the UK prior to closing his clinics in 1994 according to official national data. At the time in question he was also the medical advisor to the two main self-help charitable trust infertility organisations in the UK – CHILD and the National Association of the Childless.

The Story

This originates in 1991 but has repercussions to this date in view of Lord Winston’s failure to correct his falsification of medical medical records, failure to inform Philipa of the fact she does not have a diseased uterus, and his failure to retract his dishonest publication in the British Medical Journal which therefore still stands. The repercussions also include the ongoing saga of alleged corruption and incompetence at the highest level of the UK parliamentary mandated supreme medical supervising authority – the national General Medical Council which is equivalent to a State Medical Board or Professional or Professional Regulation Board (see PART 2).

Dr Trevor Dutt is an Infertility specialist who sent Philipa to JG’s clinic in Sept 1987 for consideration of IVF treatment for her long standing, unexplained infertility. A fiberoptic hysteroscopy was performed at JG’s clinic by one of the infertility doctors there (Dr Morcos) to inspect the uterine cavity under direct vision. This was described as an easy procedure and he documented a thoro’, highly detailed account of a perfectly normal uterine cavity. She then embarked on the clinic’s IVF program having a total of 6 embryo transfer procedures subsequent to 7 treatment IVF cycles over the subsequent 2+ years. She did well to conceive on 3 of these 6 occasions especially in view of her relatively advanced reproductive age at the time (commencing at 37+ yrs). Unfortunately, she suffered early miscarriages on each occasion. For this reason Philipa sought a specialist second opinion via her GP (GP = General Practitioner -ie family doctor) from Professor Lord Robert Winston.

Philipa’s first consultation Nov 13^th 90 – now aged 39+ years – with Lord Winston at London’s Hammersmith Hospital was a setup. The Cook Report weekly investigative TV program produced by Central Television had recruited Winston to find “badly treated” IVF patients for its forthcoming exposé on the “IVF Baby Business”. Winston was to appear on the program as an apparently impartial observer making highly critical comments about IVF private practitioners even though he operated one of the largest private IVF practices in the country at the time. This first consultation was a setup because some of the following bullet points;-

Lord Winston was a de facto Cook Report medical advisor who had been specifically tasked by it to recruit IVF patients who had been badly treated.

2. Winston shortcut his usual 3 to 4 year government National Health Service infertility 1^st consultation waiting list in order to see Philipa within just 2 weeks of her family doctor’s routine referral letter for no other explicable reason other than recognizing from it that his ex-colleague (Dr JG) had previously treated her. This represents phenomenal shortcutting of the waiting list.

3. Philipa gives a surprising description of there being another man present throughout the first consultation who never spoke at any time and Winston never introduced him. It was only at a later date that Winston revealed his identity – that he was a reporter for the Cook Report TV program, Graeme Thomson.

4. Winston’s first consultation assessment on Nov 13^th 90 was desultory. He did not bother to examine her physically. He did not even document asking how often she had intercourse, if at all. His entry in the medical record consists merely of a few words describing her past IVF history without any other meaningful detail, evaluation or discussion.

5. Winston documented in the hospital record his request that Philipa repeats her laparoscopy and hysteroscopy dye insufflation tests. This occurred several months after his 1^st consultation (Feb 18^th 91) and was performed by his team colleagues, Dr Margara and Afnan. However, he made no mention in his hospital’s medical notes of his intention to perform a repeat hysterosalpingogram (HSG) uterine x-ray though, in fact, Winston performed this test personally only two days after his 1^st consultation. The significance of this secret x-ray will be made clear in the next section. Incidentally, Winston did not wait for the results of the laparoscopy and hysteroscopy test which he had requested prior to taking his next, fateful step of sending Philipa to the Cook Report program.

6. Contrary to standard medical practice Winston never contacted Dr Dutt nor Dr JG to obtain details of their previous assessments of Philipa’s infertility condition, their previous test results nor to discuss Winston’s subsequent disparate diagnoses. This was even more vital significant given that Winston knew his own subsequent, various, purported uterine diagnoses were so shocking in their alleged findings and their implications that they were bound to contradict these two specialists’ own findings and previous infertility management. However, their involvement was irrelevant to Winston as he intended that the fraudulent exposé that he was about to engineer as the Cook Report TV program’s main medical advisor would destroy Dr JG’s reproductive medicine career as well as sacrifice Philipa’s infertility career.

OF WINSTON’S SECRET UTERINE HYSTEROSALPINGOGRAM (HSG) X-RAY

Philipa had a total of 4 uterine tests during her infertility career. None of these showed any significant uterine pathology. The 1^st was Dr Dutt’s HSG (hysterosalpingogram uterine x-ray). The 2^nd was the hysteroscopy to inspect the uterine cavity under direct fiberoptic vision performed by Dr JG’s colleague (Dr Morcos) at JG’s clinic prior to embarking on IVF. The 3^rd uterine test was Winston’s personally performed, secret HSG x-ray. Dr Margara/Afnan’s laparoscopy and hysteroscopy at Hammersmith Hospital was the 4^th.

Coming back to the 3^rd test: The TV journalist’s contemporaneous notes document that Winston’s 1990 HSG uterine x-ray was to be done on the program’s behalf (rather than the patient’s behalf, tellingly). His notes state;- “At present she is being rushed through for an x-ray, on our behalf, to confirm that her uterus is indeed deformed. …… it is now confirmed she has a severely deformed uterus.” However, Winston lied about his verbal description of the results of this test to the journalist, Philipa and the TV company. In fact, it shows no deformation or other significant uterine pathology according to expert opinion.

It is noteworthy that Winston did not try to obtain a copy of Dr Dutt’s actual uterine (Dec 3rd 86) HSG x-rays prior to the broadcast. This failure is remarkable given what was to follow.

Winston made a point of personally performing his HSG x-ray on Philipa at a very small, nondescript private hospital (the old Royal Masonic Hospital) despite having direct access to the very best and most modern, sophisticated, and free, government National Health Service radiological facilities at his own, world famous, Hammersmith Hospital. This enabled him to keep the test, and its true results, off any official record so that Winston could claim his personal interpretation to Philipa and the TV progam of a “badly deformed” uterus merely on the basis of his own personal, verbal say-so without challenge.

Winston never asserts or formally records the phrase “deformed uterus” himself in any written document or medical record. The only such written description that exists is in the journalist’s contemporaneous notes as quoted above. No mention is made in Hammersmith Hospital’s or any other medical record of Winston’s intention to perform the HSG, it’s actual performance, nor of its results. Accordingly, the family doctor was never informed of its existence or purported results despite its implications and the fact that had been the family doctor who had referred Philipa to Winston in the first place for his infertility opinion. This was therefore a completely secret x-ray. Its existence was discovered incidentally, about eight years later, only during the defamation case process eventually brought by Dr JG against Winston and the TV program in 2000 for their broadcasts. The only radiological specialist’s assessment then carried out almost a decade later on the actual x-ray images unequivocally states the uterus shows no significant pathology. This is not surprising given that Philipa’s 3 other previous uterine tests showed no significant uterine cavity pathology either.

THE COOK REPORT TV PROGRAM

The initial broadcast was on April 16^th 91. It started off by featuring Dr JG at the beginning but it then went on to slam the other leading IVF practitioners at the time including Bourn Hall (the word’s pioneer of IVF) and Prof Ian Craft who had pioneered the second IVF successes in the UK (Winston was the third), and the Hallam infertility clinic. Philipa appeared to be the star of the show as her particular film clip was rebroadcast 3 months later on July 18^th 91 as part of a compilation of the the best clips of the Cook Report’s current TV series and then again, for a third time, the same clip was incorporated as one of a compilation of the best Cook Report clips of the decade in Dec 29^th 94. Winston portrayed himself on the program as an impartial medical expert without any apparent connection to Philipa though he had directed her to complain to the TV program only 2 days after their first consultation. He heavily criticized private IVF practice in general without admitting he operated one of the busiest private IVF practices in the UK. He made no mention of the fact that he was also on the letter heading of the only other private IVF clinic in Leeds but he had failed to achieve any IVF success over the previous year. Nor did he reveal that his ex-work colleague Dr JG had opened his 3^rd IVF program in Leeds at the local BUPA hospital – on the very doorstep of Winston’s IVF center – only 3 months before the TV broadcast.

Very pointedly, Winston had not contacted Dr JG at any time prior to the broadcast to obtain details of his clinic’s assessment of Philipa, nor to inform JG of his current involvement with her, nor of Winston’s alleged concerns. Nor had Winston contacted Dr Trevor Dutt in these respects. Self evidently, Dr Dutt would never have referred Philipa to JG for IVF had Dutt had any concerns about the health of Philipa’s uterus.

Lord Winston was no doubt fully aware that Philipa would parrot on the TV broadcast his falsely planted advice that her uterus was “badly deformed” and that Dr JG must have known this all along. He knew this false diagnosis claimed on national TV would destroy Dr JG’s reproductive medicine career and his 3 clinics. He himself appeared on the TV program as an apparently impartial commentator heavily criticising British private IVF practice but without his admission of his own personal or professional connection to Philipa or to his arranging her TV appearance. Furthermore, he approved the final version of the program according to a subsequent letter forwarded to Dr JG by Dame Mary Donaldson after the initial broadcast. Also, there is no reasonable doubt that he would have watched the actual broadcast given the extraordinary circumstances of it. Winston did nothing to prevent a subsequent rebroadcast of the Philipa clip only three months after the initial broadcast, nor of a third rebroadcast of the clip almost 3 years later even though he was must have been fully aware of the devastating impact the initial TV broadcast would have had on JG’s professional reputation, career and clinics.

Dr JG describes in his witness statement that he had been telephoned out of the blue by the Cook Report journalist, Graeme Thompson, three weeks prior to the broadcast on three separate occasions as the journalist tried to persuade him to appear on the program. The journalist had informed Dr JG in these phone conversations that Philipa had sought a specialist 2^nd opinion who had then sent Philipa to complain to the TV program that her uterus was “badly deformed”, and the 2^nd opinion had advised the TV program and Philipa that Dr JG should have known about this all along, and that Dr JG had entered her into his IVF program knowing this alleged diagnosis contraindicated IVF success, and she had therefore been “ripped-off”. Philipa eventually stated all this on television. However, the journalist repeatedly refused to provide Dr JG with the identity of the 2^nd opinion nor the nature or evidence for his criticisms. For this reason Dr JG explained to the TV journalist that he would refuse to appear on the program as he feared being pilloried by his secret accuser in a TV kangaroo court/Star-chamber style witch-hunt. The journalist had promised to contact the 2^nd opinion in order relay Dr JG with a specific explanation of the 2^nd opinion’s alleged concerns regarding Philipa’s apparent uterine problem but never did so. Similarly, the journalist promised to convey the results of Philipa’s first two non-pathological uterine test results to date for the 2^nd opinion’s comments, but none was conveyed back to Dr JG. It was not until 3-4 months after the 1^st broadcast that Dr JG discovered Professor Lord Robert Winston – Dr JG’s ex-professional work colleague – was, in fact, his secret accuser; – as this information was eventually released by the TV company via forwarding to Dr JG a copy of Winston’s highly defamatory letter dated July 28^th 1991 that Winston had written to the TV company in response to Dr JG’s formal complaint to the then British Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCC) which had then called Winston to account for himself.

LORD WINSTON’S FALSIFICATION OF THE MEDICAL RECORD

Winston was called to account for himself by the TV company (Central Television) in response to Dr JG’s complaint to the BCC following the first broadcast. Dr JG had pointed out to the TV company before and after the broadcast that Philipa’s uterine HSG x-ray at the Royal Northern Hospital, and the hysteroscopy inspection of the uterine cavity by a colleague at Dr JG’s clinic prior to embarking on the IVF program, had both shown the uterus to be non-pathological.

At this point it should be emphasised that Winston had never responded to the TV company’s two previous written requests prior to the broadcast which had asked Winston to provide them with the formal results of his personally performed ‘secret’ HSG uterine x-ray. Unwisely, Winston’s failure to respond to these 2 requests prior to the initial broadcast – and the program’s complete lack of evidence – did not prevent the Cook Report from broadcasting Philipa’s assertion that her uterus was “badly deformed” according to her second opinion (Winston) and she had therefore been “ripped-off”. Philipa writes that Winston had directed her to complain to the Cook Report TV program only two days after his first medical consultation with her.

It is necessary to emphasise that Winston had never documented up to the time of the broadcast any shred of evidence or any description of any pathological uterine problem in any medical record, document, or letter to the patient’s family doctor. Nor had he made the slightest contact with Dr JG or Dr Trevor Dutt. Yet he was now belatedly asked by the TV company July 22^nd 91 (see Note below) to justify himself after the event. Winston’s panicked response was to falsify the hospital’s medical record several days after receiving the TV companies demand for an explanation. Winston, for the first and only time in any medical record, now alleged Philipa’s problem was a uterine ‘septum’. However, a uterine septum is a very specific diagnosis and is always congenital – i.e. a defect which is present at birth. It is a uterine defect which can never develop in a woman at any time later in life if it was not initially present at the time of birth. It can contribute towards infertility or an increased risk of miscarriages. Therefore, if any one uterine test shows that it is absent at any moment in time, then a septum can never subsequently develop. In Philipa’s case she already had by now four tests of the uterus – none of which showed any significant pathology let alone a uterine septum.

Note the following; –

July 22^nd 91. Winston received a letter dated July 22^nd 91 from the TV company calling him to account for himself given that he had refused to respond to their previous 2 requests prior to the initial broadcast for his evidence to justify his previous his verbal “badly deformed” uterus assertion;- “As you will have noticed from the Broadcasting Complaints Commission letter from Dr Glatt, he outlined his clinical management of Philippa and attacks yourself with regard to the Allerton Medicare unit in Leeds and his own employment in your unit in 83/84. I now as a matter of urgency have to draft a reply to his specific allegations and for this I need your help. If you would be kind enough to put in writing your clinical management of Philippa to date – your assessment of her uterus and what tests brought you to your conclusion much in the same clinical format that Dr Glatt has done – explain why the letter from her GP suggested there was a problem with the uterus and why Dr Glatt should have realised she has a deformed and damaged uterus prior to and during treatment. Also what is the prognosis for future IVF treatment. It is important that we see this one off at the pass as a ruling against Central TV could open the way for legal action. We have a strong case in Philippa which I with your help need to articulate in the medical sense. After the programme was transmitted you told me for the first time that Dr Glatt had been an employee of your unit…… A spirited defence I am confident will resolve this matter quickly.”

July 28^th 91. Winston then falsified the hospital medical record. “July 28^th 91. Worth trying to remove septum. Get in day case hysteroscopy by RW for resection in September……”. The date of his July 28^th entry is especially significant given this is on a Sunday which is the one day of the week in which no hospital outpatient clinics or interactions take place. Winston ignored the 3^rd sentence quoted in the previous paragraph. This is the only accusation of a ‘septum’ in any medical record, though the word is repeated in the letter that Winston then wrote to the TV company on the following day – July 29^th.

July 29^th 91. Winston then wrote back to the TV company one day after the falsification of the medical record. He wrote one single, bland sentence in his 5 page highly defamatory letter claiming the existence of a ‘septum’ without any explanation of how he had reached this diagnosis despite the TV company’s letter specific request for such detail. Thus, this sequence of events occurred – suddenly and unexpectedly – all in the same week of being called to account in July 22^nd. This specific ‘septum’ diagnosis is completely unrelated to Winston’s previously false advice to Philipa that her problem was that of a non-specific “badly deformed” uterus (whatever that might mean). Winston never advised the patient’s family doctor, Dr Trevor Dutt nor Dr JG of this particular, newly alleged ‘septum’ diagnosis despite the apparently enormous significance of it – precisely because the absurdity of it would have been clearly apparent to all. It appears “out of the blue” some six months after any previous entry in the medical record – the last entry of which related specifically to the laparoscopy and hysteroscopy performed by Winston’s colleagues, Drs Margara and Afnan, at Hammersmith Hospital almost 6 months earlier and which did not describe any specific abnormality of the uterine cavity let alone a uterine septum.

FALSE OPERATION WITHOUT MENTION OF SEPTUM

Note that Winston emphasised that resection (removal) of the ‘septum’ was to be done by himself rather than any other member of his team. At his operation, however, Winston now makes no mention of the alleged ‘septum’ at all. The totality of his hand written operation record is as follows;-

“Sept 12^th 91. Operative Hysteroscopy. Largely tube like uterus. No ostia identifiable. Gradually stripped up using operative hysteroscope and cavity enlarged approximately 3x. No bleeding until very end of procedure………..HSG by me and review 4/12 (= 4 months).”

Thus, instead of the planned ‘septum’ resection operation, his operation note describes a completely different operation – that of adhesiolysis – i.e. removal of adhesions (flimsy scars otherwise medically known as synechae which have the visual appearance of cobwebs of variable density). These were allegedly so extensive that he claims he was able to enlarge the size of the uterine cavity threefold. Winston does not bother to explain the sudden, extraordinary, change in diagnosis in his medical record. Of course, it is his eyes only that peer down the fiber-optic telescope/hysteroscope during the procedure so he can describe what he wants to, without challenge. Anyway, Winston gives no explanation for the sudden appearance of such extensive intrauterine adhesions when none of Philipa’s 4 previous uterine tests show any such problem. Nor does Winston bother to explain his failure to resect his previously alleged ‘septum’ which was the ostensible purpose of his operation, or even make mention of a ‘septum’ in his operation notes. Yet a septum is a permanent congenital structure which cannot possibly improve or disappear spontaneously.

Winston’s operation was a travesty, a sham. There was no indication or need for any operation. Winston had subjected this patient to surgery under false pretences. This operation represents physical assault in the absence of correctly obtained, fully informed consent. None of Philipa’s 4 previous uterine tests show any evidence of a uterine septum or adhesions within the uterine cavity. The ONLY explanation for claiming otherwise was the fact that he had been called to account by the TV company. He then falsified the medical record with the invented ‘septum’ diagnosis as he imagined he could then conduct a sham hysteroscopy operation to resect it (only his eyes down the operating hysteroscope) so that any subsequent tests performed by, say, other gynecologists at a later date would merely reveal the now newly normal uterine cavity thus apparently demonstrating what a marvellous surgeon Winston was! No evidence of his trickery would be evident. But he later realized that his subsequent lie of a congenital uterine ‘septum’ could not possibly stand in view of the weight of evidences Dr JG had presented to the BCC in the interim. So, Winston felt forced to change his alleged diagnosis in a desperate attempt to try to cover up his misconducts and dishonesty to date.

WINSTON PUBLISHES A DISHONEST LETTER TO THE ‘BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL’

Lord Winston was criticized in letters published in the BMJ by other physicians related to his role in the TV broadcast. Winston publishes his reply in a letter to the editor May 18^th 91 to one of them; – “Sir, – Mr Roger Neuberg’s factually incorrect letter carries innuendoes beneath comment. However, I was in no way responsible for the treatment of Dr Jack Glatt or, indeed, anybody else mentioned in the programme. I neither wished for, nor had, any editorial input.” But he was entirely responsible. Winston was the medical advisor for the program, asked in writing to recruit patients for it, directed Philipa to complain to it with a false diagnosis entirely concocted by himself, and, approved the final version according to Dame Mary Donaldson’s letter to Dr JG of April 24^th 91 in which she writes ;- “Medical advice was taken on the programme and the final version was approved by the advisers”. Dame Mary [chair of the then IVF Interim Licensing Authority} explains that she discovered this on direct inquiry to the program director. He most certainly had editorial control as the program relied entirely on his input regarding this segment. His editorial input is also implicit in the correspondence quoted above in the July 22^nd 1991 letter. Thus Winston’s published letter is a thoroughly brazen dishonesty which he foisted upon his medical colleagues and the professional readership prior to anyone discovering or even suspecting the central role he played in this scandal at the time of publication. Lord Winston has not retracted this letter to date.

THE FINAL INSULT TO INJURY: THE ‘END GAME’

After the above operation, Philipa writes that Winston told her she would need up to 5 further operations prior to him considering her suitable for his own IVF program. But, by now, she was already 40+ years old having already spent 1 year under Winston’s mismanagement without being offered any infertility treated to date despite this critical age juncture when every single day counted, and every wasted month cost dearly. This final threat of repeated unnecessary multiple further surgeries appears designed to ensure she was most unlikely to seek a future 3^rd opinion given her purported need to remain under Winston’s personal umbrella for the alleged need for further operative treatments. A 3^rd opinion would have exposed Lord Winston’s trickeries. But, more likely, Professor Lord Robert Winston may well have hoped that his baseless threat of Philipa requiring multiple further operations would encourage Philipa to give up on infertility investigations and treatment, entirely. This is what, in fact, happened. Philipa wrote to Winston soon afterwards to inform him that she was giving up and would, instead, pursue adoption. She further writes that Winston never replied.

CONCLUSION

Lord Robert Winston is a charlatan who raped this patient’s reproductive career.

He prostituted the honor of his profession.

Winston did so with the sole intention of destroying the professional reputation of an ex-colleague who had just opened a rival IVF clinic on Winston’s own doorstep in Leeds which undercut his own, poorly performing clinic’s fees by significantly more than half.

See copy of a letter written to Philipa (one of many) which provides some perspective to her own co-operative role in this scandal.

OF THE BRITISH ESTABLISHMENT… AND THE GENERAL MEDICAL COUNCIL (UK NATIONAL EQUIVALENT OF THE STATE MEDICAL BOARDS)

What did the GMC do when presented with incontrovertible evidences revealing the scale of Lord Robert Winston’s multiple professional misconducts? See the separate documents relating to the GMC scandal in PART 2What did the GMC do when presented with incontrovertible evidences revealing the scale of Lord Robert Winston’s multiple professional misconducts? See the separate documents relating to the GMC scandal in PART

PART 2 of 2

The General Medical Council Scandal.

A story of organisational corruption, incompetence and dishonesty

See copy of letter addressed to Joanna Farrell, Head of GMC Investigations dated 11 September 2011;-

Please Note; – This is a single letter addressed to her though copies of 2 other letters originally addressed to the then Chairs of the GMC, accusing the GMC of incompetence and corruption, were incorporated within it.

Additionally, this PART 2 of 2 attaches copies of the 3 formal complaints presented to the GMC in 2000, 2004, and 2007 for reference purposes.

Additionally, this PART 2 of 2 attachs copies of the 3 formal complaints presented to the GMC in 2000, 2004, and 2007 for reference purposes.

Dr Jack Gilliat

230 ***** Road

Solihull, West Midlands Tel 07540410032

11 September 2011

Joanna Farrell

Head of investigation

General Medical Council

Manchester

Dear Ms Farrell

Thank you very much for your reply of 6 September in response to my inquiry of 17 August.

Over the years, I have repeatedly provided the GMC with incontrovertible evidences of Lord Winston falsifying medical documents, perversion of the course of justice, inventing spurious diagnoses, deliberately destroying a patient’s reproductive career, concealing vital test results from the medical record and the patient’s GP, lying to the patient about her health and to the patient’s GP, to the TV programme and in a letter Winston published in the British Medical Journal, concealing a journalist during the patient’s first consultation, assaulting the patient by subjecting the patient to operative procedures of questionable necessity under improperly obtained medical consent, dishonesty, bringing the medical profession into disrepute, trying to destroy a colleague’s reputation, setting up the patient, written defamation/denigration of a colleague, etc..

Your reply stated; –

“I recognise that you do not accept that the GMC has given your complaints appropriate attention but I am satisfied that the GMC has dealt with your complaints in accordance with its statutory powers and made appropriate decisions. Therefore, the matter will remain closed on the basis that an Assistant Registrar has determined that an investigation is not warranted.”

But the GMC has never investigated my complaints of 2000, 2004, and 2007 in which I described more than 20 newly discovered, very serious, gross professional misconducts related to Lord Professor Robert Winston as described, in part, above. The GMC quite candidly admitted this in each of the 3 relevant refusal letters; the GMC gave as its remarkable excuse for not initiating an investigation that the GMC considered them to be essentially the same as my 1991 complaint. However, the repeated refusal to investigate the new complaints of 2000 onwards was nonsensical because;-

a) The two 1991 GMC refusal letters made it absolutely clear the only misconduct it had considered was that of defamation on a TV programme.

b) Completely irrespective of a) the GMC wrote to me in 2003 to confirm that it had destroyed all the papers relating to my two 1991 complaints, in 1998. Thus, when I presented my 2000 complaint detailing recently discovered multiple misconducts, the GMC could not possibly have had any knowledge of the relevant details of my original 1991 complaints. Therefore, the GMC appears to have lied when it refused to initiate an investigation of my 2000 complaint on the basis that;-“your current complaint is substantially the same as the one that you made in 1991… . Given these facts it is not now open to the GMC to re-consider your complaint..”.

Please explain why the GMC refused at this time to initiate an investigation into more than 20 newly presented gross professional misconducts by Lord Winston based on an apparent GMC lie.

c) In 1991, I was completely unaware of the existence of Lord Winston’s more than 20 gross professional misconducts as I eventually discovered the bulk of the details of them about 1998-9, and subsequently presented these newly discovered misconducts to the GMC in 2000. I therefore could not possibly – and did not – complain of them in 1991 as I did not know of them in 1991. However, the GMC claimed in its 2000 related refusal letter that;- “your current complaint is substantially the same as the one that you made in 1991… . Given these facts it is not now open to the GMC to re-consider your complaint..”.

Irrespective of my argument in section b), the GMC’s assertion that my 2000 complaint was substantially the same as in 1991 was not just untrue, but obviously impossible, and therefore brazenly dishonest. I wrote to explain the impossibility of the GMC’s excuse in 2004, 2007 and other letters too numerous to list here, but the GMC has persistently refused to reply. Please explain the dishonesty of the above quoted statement.

d) I recently asked the GMC to forward me their copy of my October 1991 complaint and received it last week. The covering letter described it as “…the most complete copy of your October 1991 complaint letter that we hold”. Underlying this rather coy admission of incompleteness is the fact that 2/3 of my complaint letter is missing – the GMC possess only the 1^st four pages of what was a 12 page complaint (addendum;- which was faxed to the GMC in the early years of the 2000 decade some time after discovering the GMC no longer had a copy). The GMC therefore did not have possession of the full details of my 1991 complaints in 2000. The GMC must have known this all along as the 4^th page is so obviously incomplete, ends in mid-sentence, is unsigned, and the GMC now admits it knows it to be incomplete. It is surprising the GMC never bothered to ask me for the full copy in the past.

Yet the GMC claimed in its 2004 refusal letter;- “The correspondence you have now submitted raises substantially the same issues as raised in your previous complaints and we are therefore unable to re-consider the matter”. Furthermore, the GMC claimed in its subsequent 2007 refusal letter;- “The GMC continues to maintain its position (stated and restated over the years) that all your complaints against Prof Lord Winston are closely linked, that none has been new or unrelated to its predecessors and that all have been substantially the same as the 1991 complaint.”

This was a grossly flawed assessment on which to base a refusal to initiate a standard investigation process. Given the GMC knew its belated copy of my Oct 1991 complaint was incomplete, the GMC statements quoted above were not just mistaken, but dishonest. Please explain this.

You are aware how serious the GMC’s own misconduct in failing to investigate Lord Winston will appear if made public, as it will one day. It is incorrect for you to claim in your 6^th September letter that the GMC has dealt with my complaints “…in accordance with its statutory powers and made appropriate decisions”. On the contrary, the GMC, on its own admission, has repeatedly breached its statutory obligations to investigate the new complaints since Oct 1991² (Oct 1991 being my 2^nd, very different complaint of 1991- which the GMC never investigated at all). Furthermore, it is incorrect for you to claim in this same letter the “matter will remain closed” given that the GMC has never opened an initial investigation in the first place.

My complaints will therefore remain ongoing until the GMC initiates investigations into my complaints (Oct 1991, 2000, 2004 and 2007) of Lord Winston’s extremely serious gross professional misconducts, as per statutory obligation.

Winston must not be permitted to voluntarily erase his name from the Medical Register until the GMC has investigated him and/or the police have completed investigations into possible perversion of the course of justice, which makes your reply of 1^st September redundant as, indeed “there are issues that require investigation” which preclude voluntary erasure; To permit Winston to voluntarily step down from the GMC register in order to avoid a GMC investigation would be scandalous. Only a corrupt

and incompetent GMC would allow this to happen and is likely to be motivated solely by a desire for the GMC to save its own face and avoid questions about its own failings.

Conclusion

My complaints re Lord Winston’s multiple professional misconducts since Oct 1991 have never been formally investigated by the GMC. I have not been asked questions, my evidences – hundreds of pages – have not been queried, further information not requested and Winston has not been questioned at all, nor had to face a tribunal, nor called to account in any meaningful way. In fact, none of the GMC correspondences or refusal letters have ever – in a remarkable exercise of GMC tautology and mindless bureau-speak – mentioned any of the misconducts complained of, let alone any of the key words or phrases associated with them. The excuse given for refusing to initiate an investigation process in 2000, 2004 and 2007 was that my complaints were the same as my 1991 complaints, when the GMC knew this excuse was untruthful and dishonest.

I realise these are very serious charges but will be delighted to withdraw them – and will apologise unreservedly – if you would be kind enough to reply to b), c), and d) above, and if you can forward evidence that each of the gross professional misconducts detailed in my complaints since Oct 1991 have, indeed, been properly, and individually, investigated. I know, and you know, and, incidentally, Sir Peter Rubin (the GMC’s chair) must know, there is no such evidence. I would like to imagine Sir Peter is not part of the GMC’s dishonesty and will copy this letter to him as he has responsibility for the GMC’s handling of this affair, and he needs to ensure the GMC pursues a proper course of action now. I wrote to Sir Peter 15^th July 2010 (copied below for ease of reference) providing powerful argument that the GMC’s handling of this saga to date strongly suggested not just incompetence, but also corruption, within the highest echelons of the organisation and I therefore requested Sir Peter to investigate these charges. Regrettably, I have not received a reply from him, but still expect one.

In the absence of the GMC initiating a formal investigation into my complaints of Lord Winston’s multiple gross professional misconducts, the complaints since Oct 1991² still stand before you and remain ongoing. The GMC must investigate them properly.
I wrote to Sir Peter giving cogent argument for suspecting the GMC’s handling of this affair is tainted with corruption and incompetence, asking for a formal, transparent, inquiry into the GMC’s handling of it. This letter was ignored. I would appreciate a proper reply from him, and an independent inquiry.
I would greatly appreciate detailed, specific, replies to the bulleted questions in b), c), and d), and other comments.

Finally, on a positive note, I would like to suggest a possible way forward which might allay many of the concerns described in this, and previous correspondence. A key problem that appears to have coloured GMC thinking appears to be how the October 91 complaint was handled at the time, and subsequently misinterpreted when an incomplete copy of the complaint was used for assessment. Under these exceptional circumstances the GMC might like to reassess the whole case in the public interest using the initial October 1991 complaint, if not the later complaints, as a starting point. After all the complaints are still ongoing for another reason- Lord Winston has not corrected his falsification of the medical record and he has failed to inform the patient of what has happened and that none of the tests on her uterus reported a congenital uterine septum. Part of the GMC’s remit is to protect patients, is it not?

Please reply by 6th November.

Yours sincerely

Jack Gilliat MBA, MBBS, MRCP, MRCOG, DipObs

Consultant Specialist in Internal Medicine, Diabetes and Endocrinology

1^st enclosure within Farrell Letter;- Letter to Sir Peter Rubin 15 July 2010

15 July 2010

Professor Sir Peter Rubin

Chair of General Medical Council

Dear Sir Professor Rubin

I am writing this open letter and enclosures to you, as Chair of the GMC, requesting a personal reply.

June 1991 (initial complaint)

I first forwarded a gross professional misconduct complaint against Lord Professor Robert Maurice Lipson Winston in June 1991, in which I described defamatory comments he made in a TV programme, but the GMC preliminary screener rejected it without investigation on the basis that he did not think defamation had taken place. Yet, my private action in 2000 against Winston for his defamation on TV resulted in him settling out of court.

Oct 1991

My Oct 1991 complaint presented Winston’s new, further, highly defamatory commentsin a letter he sent to the TV company in July 91, several months after the TV broadcast, and other, newly presented misconducts. The GMC preliminary screener again failed to forward this complaint for proper investigation. His rejection letter, 13 Jan ‘92 made it clear he had completely misunderstood or ignored the misconduct issues which were not even mentioned, but explained his reasoning for rejection solely and exclusively on the grounds of the initial defamatory comments Winston made on TV, without even mentioning Winston’s July defamatory letter.

These 1991 rejections represent an extra-ordinary cock-up but almost pale into insignificance when compared to what happened next.

2000, 2004, 2007

As you know, I complained to the GMC in 2000, 2004, and 2007, regarding multiple other professional misconducts providing hundreds of pages of incontrovertible evidences, asking the GMC to investigate them as they were newly discovered, extremely serious, and in the public interest. The GMC refused to initiate an investigation.

The General Medical Council

The GMC failed to forward my Oct 1991(second, different) complaint for formal investigation.

The GMC’s refusal to investigate the complaints from 2000 onwards was unconscionable given the incontrovertible evidences for new multiple gross professional misconducts – which were so damning, and the evidence so compelling, that each one would have justified a GMC inquiry in its own right. The GMC gave the absurd pretext for refusing to initiate an investigation in 2000, 2004, and 2007 that the gross professional misconducts were the same as in my initial 1991 complaint. But the body of these were different misconducts, of which I had not been aware until many years after 1991, so could not have, and had not, complained of them in ‘91. I pointed out how nonsensical the GMC’s response was each time, but never received a reply regarding this surreal charade.

There are only two rational explanations I can think of for the GMC’s persistent refusal to investigate; –

Corruption

The refusal to investigate must have occurred at the highest echelons of the GMC. I believe there were at least two reasons for this.

Lord Professor Robert Winston’s stature and establishment connections. He is the most famous doctor in the UK and is a household name due to his frequent TV appearances and programmes, especially. Winston has powerful media, professional political, and establishment connections. The horrific nature of the complaints, and the personality involved, could not have failed to reach the ears of those in the highest echelons of the GMC, I believe.

The competence and partiality of the GMC has been criticised by the medical profession, public and the press frequently over the past decades. I believe the GMC would have loathed to hold an inquiry into Winston’s misconduct over the past years because the incompetence with which it has dealt with the scandal from 1991 to date would become very public knowledge, and the GMC exposed to scathing criticism with untold consequences for those in high authority at the GMC. It was therefore in the GMC’s own interests to brush the affair under the carpet.

Incompetence

See headings above – June 1991(initial), Oct 1991, and 2000, 2004 and 2007

Mere reading of the full text of all of the rejection letters underlines just how inept the GMC was. Please re-read them Sir Professor Rubin. The rejection letters are full of floundering flannel and bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo purporting to give an explanation for the reasons for rejection. But none of them mention the more than 13 gross professional misconducts – ever (except verbal TV defamation). What an extraordinary triumph of mindless bureau-speak over the English language! The cardinal point, however, is that the only gross professional misconduct ever mentioned or discussed in any of the rejection letters was that relating to defamation.

Each rejection letter since my 1991 complaints gave exactly the same specific excuse for refusing to initiate an investigation. That is, the GMC alleged the misconducts I complained of from 2000 onwards were the same as my initial 1991 complaint. This was a shamefully lame and dishonest contention, but appears to have been deliberately used – with stubborn repetition – as a tool with which to blindly steamroller each of my lengthy, logically presented and highly detailed, evidence-based complaint letters over the years. The only plausible explanation was incompetence, but it also represented a dishonest, cynical strategy (corruption) embarked upon by the GMC to avoid investigating the Winston affair for reasons discussed in 1, above.

You will be now be aware of the reasons for my having expressed concerns about the GMC’s competence and corruption in the past, and my previous reference to the public’s common perception of the GMC as a dysfunctional, brainless dinosaur.

Summary

The GMC, by its own admission, has failed to investigate a large number of Winston’s gross professional misconducts repeatedly presented to it since Oct 91 – claiming in each rejection letter the reason for so doing was they were the same as my initial 1991 complaint, when it knew this could not possibly be the case. I have explained the logic as to why incompetence, corruption and lack of integrity/dishonesty are concerning issues

Sir Professor Rubin – Your Involvement

I spoke with you on 28 Aug 09 asking for a personal meeting in your role as newly appointed Chair of the GMC, as I currently work in the same hospital as you. You promised to first obtain, and scrutinise, the Winston file/previous correspondences, but you then declined to meet (“I cannot help on this one”). In fact, I wrote to your predecessor, Sir Graeme Catto, in a similar manner, but my correspondence, and request for a personal meeting, was simply ignored. I knocked on your office door today at the hospital, but you could not see me. This letter was in my pocket and I asked to see you for a “few minutes” as I wanted to avoid sending it. You were busy and did not want to discuss GMC business and told me to send it, which I am now doing.

I wrote to you on 16 Sept 09, but there was no reply. I wrote a detailed letter to you again on 8 March 10 ending it as follows “you have the power as President to see Winston is investigated in the public interest.” You did not reply, and did not exercise your power but merely offloaded my letter to Jackie Smith knowing she would reply with her usual round robin five line bland refusal without referring to any of my points.

The reason for this letter is that you have the position, authority and duty to ensure the GMC fulfils its function as per constitution as laid down by parliamentary statutes, and have the responsibility and ability to ensure the GMC initiates an investigation.

I would have no problems with the GMC if it formally investigated the Winston scandal, even if it reached a negative conclusion. My sole concern, however, is that the GMC has not bothered to even initiate an investigation of multiple gross professional misconducts on its own admission, and am concerned that the reasons for this failure is because of corruption at the highest echelons and incompetence, which is why this letter has brought this to the fore. Moreover, the GMC’s whole approach to date would be considered by the man in the street to be frankly dishonest. You have been personally fully aware of all the details of the Winston scandal for some time and would like to think you are not involved in this manner.

I therefore urge you not to associate yourself too closely with the GMC’s stance initiated prior to your taking up position as Chair, in which it has bent over backwards to avoid initiating a proper investigation into Winston’s multiple gross professional misconducts. You cannot condone Winston’s falsification of the medical record, concealing vital test results from the medical record and the patient’s GP, lying to a patient and her GP about the patient’s medical condition after fabricating false diagnoses, deliberately destroying a patient’s reproductive career, concealing a journalist in the patient’s first consultation, perverting the course of justice, lying to the medical profession in a letter Winston published in the BMJ, etc..

Sooner or later, I will ensure the whole affair will become public knowledge in the public interest, in which case the GMC’s, and those in authority’s, role in the scandal will be exposed to close scrutiny and the behaviour of critical players will be scrutinised in the full glare of media attention; this should be seen as an opportunity for the GMC, and its key players, to be seen in a good light and to justly benefit from widespread favourable publicity if it is seen to do the job it is meant to do.

I ask the following of you;-

The courtesy of a personal response to this letter, as it is addressed to you. I beg of you not to ignore it, or to fob it off to someone else. My past correspondences with you inevitably mean you are now deeply involved in this whole affair.

Once again I respectfully ask for a private meeting with you.

Please exercise your duty as Chair of GMC to ensure that a proper investigation is initiated into all the extremely grave, gross professional misconducts listed in the ENDNOTE and encompassed by other correspondences. The complaints have been ongoing and current since Oct 91 only because the GMC has refused to initiate an investigation on the persistent, absurd, pretext that the misconducts were the same as I described in my initial 1991 complaint. They will remain ongoing and current until as such time you ensure the GMC agrees to initiate a formal investigation in the manner proscribed by its constitution, as per statutory duty, which you are duty bound to uphold. I am writing this letter to beg you to do this, in the public interest. Please act.

Incidentally, and irrespective of the patient’s knowledge, the gross professional misconduct complaints also remain ongoing and current because neither Winston nor the GMC has formally told the patient the truth about her state of health or what happened to her, and Winston has not retracted his BMJ letter which therefore remains an ongoing, published lie about which the GMC is fully aware, but has done nothing

Sir Graeme Catto, your predecessor, did not reply to my detailed, important letter of 13 November 2007, in which I reminded him he had not replied to a letter I wrote him in 2004. I am enclosing a copy of it with this correspondence for ease of reference. I would appreciate your personal replies to all the points and questions raised in the 11 numbered sections and in the following General Comment and Summary sections of this open letter, as it was intended for his office as President of the GMC rather than to him personally. If you prefer, I could readdress it to your name.

You must conduct an inquiry into how the GMC has handled the Winston affair to date, and fully investigate my charges of systemic failure, corruption and incompetence, transparently.

Yours sincerely

ENDNOTE

Winston’s Gross Profession Misconducts – a non-exhaustive list

Forgery/falsification of the medical record.

Concealing critically important medical reports on 2 sets of X-rays from the medical record, and from the GP.

Perversion of the course of justice; – fabricating the medical record after initiating a complaint to the GMC, and doing so several days after the TV company informed him of my complaint to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission and of possible legal action.

Deliberately lying to a patient regarding her medical condition by concocting a false diagnosis so making her believe she was infertile due to a diseased uterus (congenital uterine septum) whereas all tests to date of this purported diagnosis showed no significant pathology.

Destroying the remainder of the patient’s reproductive career by withholding all directed infertility treatment for over a year when she was already 39 + yrs old.

Lying to the patient’s GP, deliberately misleading the GP, and concealing vital test results over a period of approximately 1 year.

Concealing the presence of a journalist during the patient’s 1^st consultation.

Subjecting the patient to operative procedures under general anaesthetics via improperly obtained consent obtained under false pretences.

Physical assault, given the previous paragraph.

Lying to the medical profession in a letter published in the BMJ.

Deliberately, and falsely, destroying the trust of the patient in her medical practitioner.

Abusing his position of trust.

Inventing another concocted diagnosis of extensive uterine adhesions to replace that of congenital uterine septum. None of her previous uterine investigations had shown this diagnosis but the circumstances show the reason for the sudden switch in diagnosis was Winston’s knowledge that my evidences to the GMC and Broadcasting Complaints Authority showed his concocted diagnosis of congenital uterine septum was untenable.

Falsely advising the patient she would need 5 further operative procedures to deal with the concocted diagnosis of extensive uterine adhesions.

Acting in a manner likely to bring the medical profession into dispute.

Dishonesty.

Defamation/ gratuitous denigration of a medical colleague.

Doing all of the above with the sole intention of destroying the reputation of a rival in the same field as he.

Supplying a complete copy of the patient’s Hammersmith Hospital medical records to the TV company without proper consent and authority from the Dept of Health, or the patient.

Failing to communicate with medical colleagues to obtain relevant past history and test results, without which it would have been impossible to properly advise or manage the patient.

End of 1st Enclosure

2^nd Enclosure within Farrell letter;- 13 Nov 2007 letter to Sir Graeme Catto

13 November 2007

Sir Graeme Catto – now addressed to Sir Peter Rubin President

Dear Sir Graeme – now addressed to Sir Peter Rubin

Complaint of Gross Professional Misconduct against Lord Professor Robert Winston

Introduction

I am writing this letter to you personally, as I am appalled at the General Medical Council’s handling of my complaints of gross professional misconduct relating to Lord Professor Robert Winston.

I would be grateful for your full, personal response to this letter and request a private meeting with you as soon as possible to discuss concerns raised in this letter.

Some of my concerns are enclosed below but this must be read in conjunction with my previous complaints (especially the 2000 complaint), and would be grateful for your re – acquainting yourself with these.

You are ultimately responsible for the GMC’s conduct. May I remind you the only previous occasion I have written to you was on 14^th November 2004 when I begged you (that was the word I used) to help ensure a proper investigation; I enclosed my November 2004 complaint, and pointed out my concerns of incompetence and corruption at the highest level. You did not reply or acknowledge my letter.

However, this particular letter is mainly prompted by the General Medical Council’s latest response to a resubmission of my complaints of 8 June 2007. The first three pages of my submission analysed how the GMC had erred in turning down my 2000 and 2004 complaints. The remaining nine pages correlated my multiple complaints point by point, comparing it in great detail with the GMC’s own published guidance on professional misconduct. The GMC’s response was shocking in various respects. It is important to analyse 11 parts (quoted below in bold type) of the GMC’s 23 August 2007 refusal letter in detail, as it encapsulates the GMC’s previous refusal responses.

The GMC’s Reply of 23 August 2007

I will respond to the critical components of the reply by dividing it into 11 main parts, quoted in bold type, for ease of analysis; –

The GMC’s reply summarised my 1991 complaint in the following manner;-

“You complained of allegedly unfair criticism of you and allegedly inadequate care and conduct towards her. All your (current) allegations and documents are closely linked to those central features (that programme and that patient).

The GMC wrote to you on 6 August 1991 confirming that the matter had been considered by a medical and a lay member of council who had reached the decision that your complaint should be concluded with no action.”

My current allegations (of which there are at least thirteen) and documents since 2000 are hardly related to the defamation issues at all. Assertions of “All”, and, “closely linked”, are meaningless, and incorrect given you are alluding to the (initial)1991 complaint which the GMC considered on TV verbal defamation issues only. The (initial)1991 refusal letter made it clear the GMC had not looked at any other issues relating to my 1991 complaint, but for defamation. Please re-read it.

“A High Court Consent Order endorsed by Mr Justice Morland and dated 3 May 2000, ending your defamation claim, preceded your 2000 complaint. Through that Consent Order you and Prof Lord Winston specifically agreed that it “was not [Prof Lord Winston’s] intention to make any comments about [you in his contribution to The Cook Report on 16th April 1991] and he genuinely regrets any contrary impression that was given in the programme”. That agreement would appear to undermine any complaint by you to the GMC that Prof Lord Winston deliberately or knowingly made any such comments”.

“…you and Prof Lord Winston specifically agreed that it “was not [Prof Lord Winston’s] intention to make any comments about you…”. Not so. I did not specifically agree with Lord Prof Winston that it “was not Prof Winston’s intention…”. The converse is obviously the essence of defamation and its circumstances. Read the agreement properly. Winston had to issue his statement as part of the financial damages he was forced to make. This was his statement.

“That agreement would appear to undermine any complaint by you to the GMC that Prof Lord Winston deliberately or knowingly made any such comments. I see the GMC feels the need to use the word “appear”. The “agreement”, and the out of court settlement, did not undermine any complaint by me to the GMC. The settlement was a de facto admission of defamation which was wrung out of Winston nine years after the event following a three year legal battle precisely because my General Medical Council had failed to do anything at the time. It is therefore especially galling to see this fatuous quote (as above) – more so because I have previously pointed out to the GMC the following two quotes by Winston, which merely confirms the obvious;- a) Winston wrote to the TV programmed 3 months after the broadcast, as follows;- “I see no great problem with the placing of my comments within the context of the programme”, and b) his witness statement 8 years later confirmed;- “I have a vague recollection of being quite pleased with the interview I gave…”. These two quotes confirm Lord Winston approved the use of his interview well after the event when he was fully aware of the devastation it had caused.

The GMC’s reply summarised my 2000 complaint in the following manner; –

“Your 2000 complaint was set out in a letter dated 27 July 2000 and enclosure of the same date. The letter said that it enclosed a complaint against Prof Lord Winston “in relation to his involvement with the Cook Report television programme and a mutual patient called Langton”. It continued “[p]lease be aware that I forwarded a complaint to the GMC in 1991. At that time I did not have the extent of evidences that are now available … I trust that the GMC will now conduct a comprehensive inquiry”. In other words, you asked the GMC to re-open the original complaint and to supplement it with further material. Page 2 of the enclosure was to the same effect. You referred to the original complaint in 1991 and said that you would be “grateful for [the GMC] reopening the previous correspondence on this complaint”. You then described the complaint as follows: “The complaint is that Lord Winston disparaged my professional abilities and calculatingly misinformed the patient (Philippa Langton) and the Cook Report programme about the condition of Philippa Langton’s uterus in order to publicly ruin my reputation. In doing so Lord Winston deliberately sacrificed the remainder of this patient’s reproductive career. The remainder of the enclosure elaborated that complaint in relation to Prof Lord Winston and Mrs Langton. The GMC’s letter dated 20 April 2001 declined your request to reconsider the 1991 complaint under rule 14 of the 1988 Rules because more than two years had elapsed between the two complaints and because they were substantially the same.”

The GMC’s summary of my 2000 complaint is extraordinary. I have never seen such wilful, misleading, selective editing before.

The GMC’s summary quoted approximately 11 lines of my 2000 complaint – completely out of context – in which I had quite reasonably alluded to my original complaint in 1991 and my wish for the defamation issue to be revisited. After all, Winston settled my civil defamation case against him earlier in 2000. But my 2000 complaint also encompassed 10 packed pages approximately, comprising about another 640 lines, which went into great detail of at least 13 major areas of other gross professional misconducts which I had not presented to the GMC previously. This was a new complaint because of freshly discovered misconduct issues. These 10 pages carefully referenced another several hundred pages (which I enclosed with my 2000 complaint) of incontrovertible evidences in connection with these approximately thirteen, separate instances of gross professional misconducts. Just to re-emphasise; – the vast bulk of my 2000 complaint had nothing to do with disparagement or defamation. The GMC’s summary has therefore completely ignored the main thrusts of my 2000 complaint. This omission is unforgiveable, and the above synopsis is highly misleading. Please explain.

The GMC’s reply summarised my 2004 complaint in the following manner; –

“Your 2004 complaint was set out in a letter dated 10 December 2004 (headed “Final DEFINITIVE VERSION”). Paragraph 1 said that you had previously submitted relevant details to the GMC on two separate occasions, in 1991 and 2000, and that the current submission needed to include the previous two submissions and their associated correspondence. Paragraph 3 added that the 2000 complaint included further details which “reinforced” the 1991 complaint, which was included for “reconsideration” in the 2000 complaint. Paragraph 6 asked the GMC to “reconsider the complaint”. The GMC’s letter dated 23 December 2004 stated that its position was unchanged and maintained its reliance on its letter dated 20 April 2001.”

The GMC’s summary of my 2004 complaint is just as misleading as its 2000 synopsis, above. The synopsis in 4. is taken so wildly out of context as to falsify the real picture.

The first part of my 2004 complaint had indeed analysed the GMC’s errors concerning defamation as the GMC had refused my 2000 complaint on the incorrect assertion that it was the same as the 1991 complaint. This incorrect assertion required a robust response. However, the bulk of my 2004 complaint listed the gross professional misconducts, and enlarged on them in elaborate detail. In fact, the penultimate paragraph of my 2004 complaint summarised some of this list as follows;-

“They (my extensive list of gross professional misconducts) all demonstrate severe breaches of the GMC code of conduct. Other breaches have been detailed in my previous submissions. Thus, the GMC’s refusal to consider the 2001 complaint on the above quoted basis is inaccurate and incorrect and not in the best interests of patients, the public interest, or the medical profession. This is an important and unique case involving profound implications for the public interest, patient protection, justice, blatant abuse of medical privilege, a desire by one physician to destroy the reputation of a rival in the field by cynically manipulating a vulnerable patient and ruining her reproductive career in the process, deceit, dishonesty, defamation, fraud, forgery of medical notes, concealment of patient mismanagement and results from a GP, deliberate miscommunication with colleagues, physical assaults on a patient for almost a year by deliberately subjecting LANGTON to unnecessary operative investigations and general anaesthetics under false pretences, destruction of patient trust, invasion of patient privacy, lying to the patient, TV company, the court and to the British Medical Journal, the proper functional due process within the GMC, etc.. I am sure that jealousy, spite and hatred for a rival in the field features prominently in the mix. I have also provided reasons why I believe in the initial complaint was not processed appropriately by the GMC requiring it to look at the whole matter again, properly, anyway,”

The GMC’s August 2007 synopsis of my 2004 complaint distorts reality by falsely claiming my complaint was “unchanged” and referred back to the GMC’s 2000 refusal in a Kafkaesque, circular argument without a single reference to the main bulk of my 2004 complaints. Can you please explain this disingenuous distortion?

“On 8 August 2005 Wolfson& Co. (your former solicitors) purported to make a “fresh complaint” on your behalf based on the allegations that Prof Lord Winston “acted in an unprofessional manner towards [you] by providing false information to The Cook Report … which caused them to promote research into [your] Practice and to broadcast extremely damaging allegations and information to the Public at large” and that he had “falsified [Mrs Langton’s medical] records”. By letter dated 4 January 2006 the GMC declined to investigate on the ground that the essence of those allegations had already been considered and that their rejection should stand.”

I must take issue with; – “…and that he had “falsified [Mrs Langton’s medical] records… By letter dated 4 January 2006 the GMC declined to investigate on the ground that the essence of those allegations had already been considered and that their rejection should stand.””. The GMC has never investigated falsification of the records. None of the GMC’s rejection letters has ever mentioned the word “falsification” or forgery previously, let alone investigate the matter. At the risk of repetition, the GMC’s rejection letters of 2000, 2004, and now of 2007, made no mention of any investigation of any of my complaints. The stated explanations for rejection were quite specifically, on each occasion, the GMC’s purported allegation that my complaints were substantially the same as my 1991 complaint – which the GMC rejected on consideration of defamation issues only. This is confirmed by the following quoted paragraph, in the next section.

The GMC summarised my 2007 complaint in the following manner; –

“The GMC continues to maintain its position (stated and restated over the years) that all your complaints against Prof Lord Winston are closely linked, that none has been new or unrelated to its predecessors and that all have been substantially the same as the 1991 complaint. Indeed, much of your own correspondence has linked the later complaints to the 1991 complaint.”

My case rests. This is a remarkable admission which goes to the heart of the matter. It concedes the point I have made at great length in all of my complaint letters since 2000, including that of June 2007, and today’s. This position policy spanned the years from 2000 with disastrous results. The GMC repeatedly declined investigation of my fresh issues of multiple gross professional misconducts on the basis of this mistaken dogma. (see endnote, page 10)

However, the GMC’s disregard has been taken to extreme lengths. The GMC has avoided any discussion whatsoever of any of the at least thirteen instances of gross professional misconduct in each of its refusal letters. Not only has there been no discussion of them, but they are not even mentioned – not once in multiple pages of GMC refusals over the past seven years. In fact, none of the key words used in my complaints have been mentioned in the GMC refusal letters. Forgery, fraud, dishonesty, lying, deception, TV journalist, uterus, congenital uterine septum, investigations, tests, results, etc., appear to be taboo in the GMC lexicon.

My fresh complaints from 2000 onwards largely relied on knowledge I accrued in relation to my out of court settlement against Lord Professor Winston in the same year (2000). It presented new categories of gross professional misconduct the nature of which could therefore never have been investigated by the GMC previously.

This included; –

Winston’s forgery of the medical record (his hand written entry alleging a congenital uterine septum was the only mention of this diagnosis in the whole of this patients hospital, and other, records; Winston appended this to the records only after being challenged by the TV company for an explanation of his role); concealment of vital test results (hiding his performance of a uterine X ray from the Hammersmith Hospital record, and those of her previous X rays); fraud; concealing the presence of a TV journalist during a medical consultation at Hammersmith Hospital; misleading the patient’s GP and concealing information and the proper diagnosis and test results from the GP; lying in a letter published by the British Medical Journal in which he claimed he had nothing to do with the treatment of me by the Cook Report; lying to a TV programme; lying to a patient and deliberately and calculatingly destroying the patient’s reproductive career over a period of a year by inventing a completely spurious diagnosis and subjecting her to dubious and possibly harmful operative procedures under false pretences (which, inter alia, involved technical assault as she could not possibly have knowingly given properly informed consent); destroying the reputation of a rival colleague by secretly setting him for a TV tabloid expose using a mutual patient having primed her with his invented diagnosis, etc..

None of this could have been investigated by the GMC in 1991 given that I had no knowledge of the nature of these misdemeanours, in 1991. I did not know of them until my 2000 civil defamation case against Winston. The GMC’s assertion that “all your complaints against Prof Lord Winston….have been substantially the same as the 1991 complaint” is therefore, self-evidently, absurd. So is the assertion “that none (of my complaints) has been new”.

“Indeed, much of your own correspondence has linked the later complaints to the 1991 complaint.” Yes, of course I had asked the GMC to reconsider its 1991 refusal – incidentally. It had based its 1991 decision wholly on its belief that defamation had not taken place when this was not the case. I feel sure the GMC is therefore obliged to reconsider. The word “much” is an overt exaggeration.

“I should add, incidentally (and hypothetically), that even if (contrary to the above) you are correct that your complaints in 2000, 2004, 2005 (via Wolfson and Co) and 2007 were fresh complaints, it appears to me that the GMC would be precluded from investigating them by the rule against entertaining complaints more than five years after the relevant events (unless, exceptionally, an investigation is demanded in the

public interest): see rule 6(7)-(8) of the 1988 Rules and rule 4(5) of the 2004 Rules. Here, according to the dates given in your various submissions, the relevant events occurred from 1987 to 1991. This is much more than five years before even the first of your allegedly fresh complaints in 2000. I stress that this is not a decision (even a preliminary one) on the application of the five year rule in your case. It is not for me to make any sort of decision in that regard. I simply observe that even if your post-1991 complaints really were fresh complaints, there was a formidable obstacle to any investigation.”

My understanding is the five year rule cannot possibly start to operate until the complainant has accrued the relevant knowledge that forms the basis of a complaint, irrespective of when the incidents complained of took place. My 2000 complaint was therefore presented to the GMC with years to spare. Incidentally, I am writing this in the public interest, and have made the same point in previous representations.

“There were also, of course, the twin additional problems: first, that the relevant events took place many years ago (so documents would be difficult to obtain and memories would be stale) and, second, that Mrs Langton has refused to allow access to any of her medical records – see below.”

The documents are not difficult for you to obtain. You have them. You have been sitting on them all since 2000. I sent the GMC several hundred pages of documents in 2000 including, for example, all the medical records relating to infertility and uterine investigations that this patient has ever had, which includes the critical Hammersmith Hospital records. I have no need, nor does the GMC, for any other document that I can think of. No part of my complaints relies on memories. The evidences rely on devastating, incontrovertible, written evidences, the clarity of which is overwhelming, and cannot be stretched one way or the other by memories or wishful thinking. It is not for your executive to pre-empt (as it has above) the GMC’s Misconduct Committee ability to make its own assessments.

Regarding access, the GMC has statutory powers to subpoena medical records from Hammersmith Hospital or from the lawyers. It is ironic that I received the complete set of the Hammersmith Hospital medical records directly from the TV company (and it appears on their discovery document list, not Winston’s). It had them in its possession during the making of the programme. I invited the GMC to contact Hammersmith Hospital to subpoena its own copy of the medical records a long time ago. Has it? If not, why not?

The patient is the equivalent of a hostile witness. She is also an integral part of the whole problem but through no real fault of her own, and I can understand her negative reactions.

“It is therefore impossible to accept that you are acting in her interests or on her behalf in any way or that your interest in your complaint should take priority over her confidentiality.

I believe I am partly acting in her interests but that is irrelevant to my complaints and your duty.

I have never claimed to be acting on her behalf. You are the General Medical Council. Wasn’t the GMC’s official motto that its role was “protecting patients”? Of course, it is the GMC which should be acting “in her interests or on her behalf”. But it has failed to do so –despite its statutory obligations to do just that.

I note this is the first time over seven years of multiple correspondences that the GMC has bothered to mention the putative issue of confidentiality in a refusal letter. Her confidentiality is not an issue as you are the General Medical Council. Irrespective of this, she lost her “confidentiality” when she decided to appear on television, publicly proclaiming in front of 12 million viewers, on three separate occasions over three years, that she had a badly deformed uterus when that was never the case, and accused me of a rip-off. She knew her actions, jointly with Lord Winston, would destroy me, and, ergo, that is what she wanted at the time. I still feel tremendous sympathy for her circumstances and her terrible vulnerability, which were so cruelly exploited. Nevertheless, under the current circumstances, she has lost the right to confidentiality both in public and in front of the GMC. I have the right to a public reply in the public interest. Without a doubt, my complaint of fraud, forgery, etc., takes priority under the circumstances. The GMC has the statutory power and obligation to exercise this.

The patient has no reason to believe me and to disbelieve a Lord Professor. No- one has informed her of the truth. Lord Winston hasn’t told her. The courts have not. And the General Medical Council -whose remit is to protect patients – hasn’t told her because it has failed to investigate, though its bum is sitting on crystal clear proof. In fact, the GMC’s failure to act is presumably, in her eyes, proof enough that Winston has to be right. Thus, not only has she no right to confidentiality under the circumstances, but she is in no position to make judgements or decisions about exercising it given she has been denied the truth of her situation. The GMC is complicit in this denial by virtue of inaction.

She has not made any complaint of her own and she does not back your complaint.”Her opinion, or interest in the matter, is not actually relevant to the facts and the rights of the complaints.

Please see 8.3 and 9.4 above

“This letter summarises and restates the GMC’s long-standing position. The correspondence is already repetitive and I believe that its continuation would serve no useful purpose. The GMC regards the matter as closed and further communication on the same subject will not be answered.”

You would shut me up? The General Medical Council will never be able to redeem itself for this final, damning sentence. You, President Catto have ultimate responsibility for this. This is part of the reason I would like your personal response to this, and to my letter as a whole.

General Comments

The GMC’s 23 August 2007 response to my 3^rd major complaint (since 2000) of June 2007 is astonishing for a further reason. It completely ignored all the points of my 12 page, closely argued document. I had analysed in some detail the GMC errors in its previous correspondences but there was no reply to this whatsoever as, regrettably, has always been the case when I have done such an exercise previously. Furthermore, the main part of my 2007 complaint concentrated on the GMC’s own published misconduct guidelines. I showed, in telling detail, how Robert Winston had transgressed them, point by point. This too was ignored. The GMC’s approach to this serious letter of complaint was cavalier and insulting.

It is, of course, for the GMC screener and the eventual conduct committee to assess the nature of all my complaints and the evidences. However, the GMC’s executive has repeatedly intercepted all my fresh complaints since 2000 concerning Robert Winston and the GMC has frankly admitted it has never investigated any of them, and does not intend to. Failure to investigate a legitimate complaint breaches the GMC’s statutory and legal obligations. Certainly, crudely gagging a legitimate complainant does.

I addressed my 7 June 2007 complaint to Mr Paul Philip asking him to personally supervise the investigation of the complaint in his capacity as the Director of the Standards and Fitness to Practice. I explained why I requested his personal involvement. I did not receive a response from him but eventually heard from Jackie Smith, Head of Investigations, saying the matter had been passed on to her, without explanation. I wrote to Mr Philip again, asking why this had happened, but do not recall a response other than an eventual rejection letter coming from someone else – Linda Summers, assistant director of investigations. My 7 June 2007 complaint comprised of thirteen pages of detailed argument to which I have had no meaningful response.

I have previously expressed my concerns regarding ‘fault lines’ within the General Medical Council, and have voiced concerns of corruption and incompetence at the highest levels. I have also pointed out the public’s common perception of the General Medical Council as a brainless dinosaur more interested in protecting its own rather than patients. The GMC has received heavy public and professional criticism for its repeated failures over the years. Some of these failures pointed directly at blatant corruption or exercise of vested interests within the Council such as Professor Peter Richards’ (the then GMC Professional Conduct Hearing Chairman) highly unprofessional involvement in the Dr Clive Handler affair several years ago.

Robert Winston is the most famous doctor in the country. He is a household name. He is a media star having produced or co-operated on many TV productions. He often appears on television and radio so is extremely powerful, having extensive media connections. He is a Lord Professor so also has extensive high ranking political and professional connections and friends in the medical field.

I feel sure the GMC would have conscientiously investigated his misdemeanours had Lord Professor Winston just been Winston. After all, the accusations of misconduct are simply too major and extraordinary to ignore, the evidences so overwhelming, and the plaintiff (myself) is a doctor.

It is inconceivable that details of my complaints could not have reached the highest ranks of the General Medical Council given its extraordinary characteristics and the involvement of a Lord Professor. My complaints were so powerful I suspect the direction not to investigate must have originated from those same highest levels within the GMC establishment.

If the GMC now fails to investigate Lord Professor Winston then, sooner or later, full details of this failure will become common knowledge. I think the GMC would be then be pilloried.

Summary

The General Medical Council’s first refusal letter of 1991 clearly explained it had looked at my complaint only from the point of view of TV defamation. Unfortunately, the GMC considered that defamation had not taken place without even passing the complaint on to the Misconduct Committee.

I then submitted a new complaint in 2000 as I had discovered evidence of shocking, newly discovered professional misconducts. The General Medical Council refused to investigate my repeated complaint in 2000 and the same happened when I tried to submit complaints in 2004, and 2007 – with the extraordinary excuse that all my new complaints from 2000 onwards were precisely the same as my initial1991 complaint. The GMC knows this excuse is bullshit because the new complaints had nothing to do with the defamation issue of 1991 and, of course, I did not even know of them in 1991. The freshly discovered (at least) thirteen areas of gross professional misconduct included Winston’s forgery of medical notes, falsifying a patient’s diagnosis in order to destroy the reputation of a rival doctor thereby deliberately destroying her reproductive career, hiding investigations and results from the hospital medical record, fraud, concealment of a TV journalist during a medical consultation, lying in a published letter to the British Medical Journal about his role in the affair, misleading the patient’s GP etc..

The GMC’s refusal to investigate legitimate complaints suggests not only incompetence, but also a complete lack of integrity, if not frank corruption, for reasons touched on, above. The GMC’s shameful attempt to shut me up for my insisting it performs its statutory duty and at least investigate the mountain of evidence reinforces these worrying concerns, and is a blot on its honour. You must take a stand on this personally, and I would appreciate an apology.

My 2000 and subsequent complaints therefore still stands, for they have never been appropriately investigated on the GMC’s own admission – as that is the inevitable corollary of the GMC’s position statement (quotation 6 above, and previous refusal letters as per endnote below). This transgresses the GMC’s statutory obligation to investigate complaints of gross professional misconduct.

I therefore request your acknowledgement of and personal reply to this letter, and would be grateful for your assurance that my fresh thirteen complaints (at least) of very serious, gross professional misconducts presented to the GMC since 2000, will now be investigated by the General Medical Council.

I would be grateful for a personal meeting with you during the first fortnight of January 2008 and look forward to your acknowledgment of this letter, and hearing from you.

Yours sincerely

Jack Gilliat MBA MB MRCP MRCOG DipObs

PS I appreciate you have choices in this matter which may encompass you refusing to reply, or arranging a bland GMC response without instigating an investigation. Please understand I would then be left with no option but to eventually publicly call for your resignation. The whole story would be played out in the public arena which would likely result in an inquiry into Winston anyway. I trust this matter can be resolved properly, using the GMC’s internal investigation procedures in the right way.

21 7-29-91 Winston letter to Central TV – Copy – Copy

17 BMJ Winston letter 18-05-91 – Copy – Copy Download

13 Full TV requests X-rays pt recruitment – Copy – Copy Download

12 Rushing thru HSG. Journalist notes – Copy – Copy Download

07 HSG Shaw report – Copy – Copy Download

Misconduct List vs 2 – Copy Download

List of Evidences Download

2015-10-14 Letter to Dr Gilliat refuses further corresp – Copy Download

2015-09-16 Professor Terence Stephenson FINAL – Copy Download

2014-02-20 Refuses to reply further corresp. – Copy Download

2013-12-31 Sir Rubin must investigate my complaint as it still stands – Copy Download

2011-10-27 GMC refusal to investigate my letter 27 Oct 2011 – Copy Download