Stop punishing doctors who take part in climate protests, regulator told

Hundreds of health workers have called on the General Medical Council to stop suspending doctors imprisoned for peaceful climate activism ahead of a trial which could see the first jailing of a working GP for a non-violent climate protest in the UK.

Two retired GPs have been suspended by GMC-convened tribunals this year after receiving short sentences for non-violent offences during Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain protests in 2021 and 2022. The medical regulator did not express concerns about the doctors’ clinical capabilities but said their actions undermined public confidence in the profession.

Their treatment angered many medics, with the British Medical Association describing one suspension as “malicious” and claiming the GMC had created a “dangerous precedent”.

Last week, an open letter objecting to the GMC’s hardline approach and signed by 464 GPs, hospital doctors, consultants and nurses, as well as public figures including Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, and the human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, was delivered to the regulator’s London offices. The letter claims healthcare professionals have “turned to civil disobedience as a way to effect change” because “billions of lives are being put at risk by rising global temperatures”. It calls on the GMC to reverse the suspensions and “show its support for those who have sacrificed their freedom in calling for the deep, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions which … are humanity’s last hope”.

Next week, Patrick Hart, a Bristol GP, is due to go on trial for criminal damage. He is accused of damaging fuel pump displays at an M25 service station during a protest in August 2022. If convicted and jailed, he would be the first working doctor in the UK imprisoned for a non-violent offence during a peaceful climate protest.

Hart will also face a GMC-convened tribunal next year, where he could be suspended or stuck off. The UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, Michel Forst, has raised his plight with the UK government.

In an exchange published last week, Forst demands the UK government investigate the alleged penalising, persecution or harassment of Hart for peaceful civil disobedience, which has been used by women’s rights, anti-apartheid, anti-poll tax, LGBTQ+ and black civil rights activists. He says the GMC appears to be “subjecting Dr Hart to double punishment for his peaceful climate activism”.

In her response, Mary Creagh, the minister for nature, refused to investigate the UN’s concerns. She stated there was “no right to civil disobedience”, adding that UK laws allow for “legitimate environmental protest and public engagement”. So far only retired GPs have had their medical licence taken away by tribunals. Diana Warner, a GP for 35 years around Bristol, had her licence removed for three months in August.

She had been jailed for six weeks for twice breaching private anti-protest injunctions banning people from blocking traffic on the M25 in 2021 and 2022.

The GMC’s barrister argued her actions could “properly be described as deplorable … and she had brought the medical profession into disrepute”.

Sarah Benn, a retired Birmingham GP, had her licence suspended for five months in April. She was jailed for 32 days for breaching another private injunction by protesting on a grass verge and sitting on a private road at Kingsbury oil terminal in 2022. Benn is appealing against her suspension with BMA support.

The GMC said if a doctor receives a custodial sentence after a criminal conviction, it must refer the case to a medical practitioners tribunal. “This is required in law and we can’t exercise any discretion over this,” said a spokesperson.

Doctors had the right to express their personal opinions on issues including climate change, the GMC said.

“However when doctors’ protesting results in law-breaking, they must understand that it is their actions in breaking the law, rather than their motivations, that will be under scrutiny,” the spokesperson said.

“Patients and the public have a high degree of trust in doctors, that trust can be put at risk when doctors fail to comply with the law.”

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