CROWDFUNDING APPEAL FOR LEGAL CASES

 JOSEPH ONWUDE

joeloze@outlook.com

Dear Friends,

I am truly grateful for your time which allows me to explain my recent 5-year defence of allegations of Dishonesty and Intention to Cause Distress to my former business partner whose wife was a patient.

This wiped my finances, my family and some friends. This also diminished my GP referral base despite being cleared.

I have become a defence lawyer for myself and done well at 5 GMC hearings between Sept 2015 and November 2018. I initially lost on all grounds but in the end, i had won on all 13 grounds.

In addition, I won my GMC appeal at the High Court in London as a Litigant in Person, and also an appeal by the GMC at the Court of Appeal.

The practice is slowly returning but it is time to pack up at almost 66 years.

I must now seek financial compensation BUT it will be a fight. This is my view of one of the aspects I am pursuing.

I have not floated this yet on Crowdfunding or CrowdJustice. I have put together this piece for context and explanation of our system for better understanding. It’s almost too much BUT I apologise.

I am hoping you will be able to help me when I launch this.

Joe Onwude jonwude9@gmail.com

+44745 976 2172



Background of the General Medical Council (GMC) 

Our Regulatory Law

Every UK practicing doctor has to be registered with the General Medical Council who then hold the disciplinary power over the doctor if there are complaints against the doctor. All doctors submit to this, the GMC Fitness to Practice (FTP) procedures.

The GMC is governed by statute called The Medical Act. Whenever possible previously, the GMC has incorrectly stated that their primary role is to protect patients. More recently, after sustained pressure in the BMJ, some by me, they have correctly stated their primary role to protect the public, which includes all doctors.

While the GMC was busy incorrectly focusing on the protection of patients only, and not protecting doctors as equal members of the public, the GMC reported that 28 doctors committed suicides between 2005 and 2013 (Horsfall, 2014), during GMC FTP investigations and trials and all had defence lawyers. So far, another 40 doctors have committed suicides between 2011 and 2014, but this has not been analysed to show GMC involvement with complaints.

In 2015, Parliament changed the primary objective of the GMC. Parliament clarified that while the GMC had an over-arching objective to protect the public, they must give priority to be fair and just to the doctor going through GMC FTP procedures (the overriding objective) over the protection of the public. Doctor suicides during FMC FTP procedures were clearly unpalatable to parliament.

The GMC FTP process is unpalatable at best. If anything, it is a Kafkaesque bureaucratic process. The GMC ignores its Statutory duties, which since 03/08/2015, was to be fair and just to doctors undergoing GMC FTP procedures. These are rights that have been available to people charged with criminal offences since 1998. Parliament realised that doctors undergoing disciplinary procedures were being treated less humanly than those accused of serious criminal offences, that you are innocent until proven guilty. The GMC find it difficult to state that all doctors are innocent until proven guilty, understandably because it will be difficult for them to change their culture.

The complaint by a developer business partner to build a Healthcare Park was made on 28/3/13. My hearings began on 21/9/15. It ended on 2/11/18, found not guilty or not impaired in GMC language. It is not imaginable the stress this puts on you, your marriage and your children. Your colleagues avoid you because ‘there is no smoke without fire’. And this persists’.

From one or two business complaints, the GMC investigation’s mechanism goes fishing and couple allegations that have no relationship to the original complaints and ended with

14 allegations that you had to defend. None of these concerned patient care and negligence. One allegation was admitted, that I did not at the time have indemnity insurance. This was admitted because the system I put in place failed.

Of the 13 remaining allegations, mostly unfounded allegations and one that a High Court judge described as 'an impossible allegation', the torture matter arises.

After 21/9/15, I realised that I had to fight false or unfounded or impossible allegations, which are the allegations that kill. No matter what clear evidence you present, even with direct GMC Regulations, The Good Medical Practice 2006, the GMC as a regulator is an idiotic organisation of low intelligence, who did not understand the allegations they had brought based on the rule book, The Good Medical Practice 2006, which was applicable. They are unfortunately aided by ‘doctor experts’ who sometimes have no clue about the issues they are paid to write on.

Then you get to the tribunal stage. More idiots. In my case, an Anglican reverend chaired the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service hearing. The GMC was invited, pressured, forced, litigated, and through the courts to dismiss these allegations as errors of fact or law. These all failed because it had to go all the way to the end once started, and then an appeal if necessary. The GMC FTP procedures persist at all hearings, with the maintenance of false or unfounded allegations. At that time, you do not consider torture until they start to withdraw some allegations, some just 5 days before the last hearing.

The GMC truly believes in these false and unfounded allegations but have no facts to back them, and the Superior Reverend Chairman cannot understand the difference between allegations and facts so long as he is paid.

The suffering was not only physical but mental if you find that you have to represent yourself. What can you do if your livelihood is on the line, your immediate and extended family becomes suspicious of you and your colleagues avoid you because 'there is no smoke without fire'.

At appeal on 8/3/17, Collins J [Onwude v GMC (2017) 601 (admin)] dismissed the 5 major allegations, including dishonesty and intention to cause distress to his patients as allegations that should never have been brought and must never be brought again by the GMC. However these major allegations have persisting effects.

On 5/6/18, by persistence and support, The GMC was defeated on one rehashed allegation.

On 5/6/18, by persistence and support, The GMC withdrew 3 allegations.

On 24/10/18, by force of persistence and support, The GMC withdrew two further allegations.

By 2/11/18, Mr Onwude had defeated the GMC on 2 further allegations.

You will see that, of 13 allegations that Dr Onwude had been charged with on 21/9/15, 10 of these had either been dismissed at the High Court as allegations that should not have been brought or withdrawn by the GMC after up to 36 months of torture.

On 2/11/18, Dr Onwude was cleared of all 13 charges. On the admitted charge of practicing without indemnity insurance, the Tribunal believed that the evidence was compromised.

The GMC and its executives are responsible for torture of an innocent registrant.

Mr Onwude is filing for damages for his torture. I shall be grateful for your contribution to make up £20,000 towards a claim for damages against the GMC.

Proposed Strategy

I have a secret weapon, a senior barrister who advises me on the side.

The £20,000 war chest is to file the case – For damages exceeding £100,000, you need £10,000 to file the case in the High Court. The remainder is for incidental costs, for example the lawyer who will manage the fund.

I propose to litigate this myself.

The Law that powers this claim against the CEO’s of The GMC and the GMC

1. United Nations Convention on Torture:

Article 1

For the purposes of this Convention, the word "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official [Mr Niall Dickson and Mr Charlie Massey]

2. UK law forbids torture and allows damages for torture through the Torture and Damages Act, 2009.

(1) A person who commits torture, wherever committed, shall be liable to an action for damages in civil proceedings.

1(6) Where an action is commenced under this Act, a defendant shall not be entitled to claim immunity.

Section 4(1): A person acting in an official capacity, whatever his nationality, commits torture if in the United Kingdom or elsewhere he intentionally inflicts severe pain or suffering on another in the performance or purported performance of his duties.

Section 4(4): It is immaterial whether the pain or suffering is (a) physical or psychological; or (b) caused by an act or omission.

The GMC and its executives are responsible for torture of an innocent registrant.

3. Article 3 European Convention on Human Rights

“No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

Article 3 is an absolute right, i.e. it cannot be balanced against competing interests like some of the other ECHR rights and it applies even in times of war or other public emergency. The UK’s obligations under Article 3 apply irrespective of any reprehensible/criminal conduct on the part of the applicant.

159. “A practice incompatible with the Convention consists of an accumulation of identical or analogous breaches which are sufficiently numerous and inter-connected to amount not merely to isolated incidents or exceptions but to a pattern or system; a practice does not of itself constitute a violation separate from such breaches.

It is inconceivable that the higher authorities of a State should be, or at least should be entitled to be, unaware of the existence of such a practice. Furthermore, under the Convention those authorities are strictly liable for the conduct of their subordinates; they are under a duty to impose their will on subordinates and cannot shelter behind their inability to ensure that it is respected”.

When Para 159 is expanded and applied:

It is inconceivable that the CEO of the GMC was unaware that GMC FTP procedures are very stressful

Joseph Onwude 19/2/2022