High Court slams the GDC’s “lamentable ignorance” of court procedures

The GDC’s “lamentable ignorance” of the confidential nature of Family Court proceedings has led to a brutal judgment of its conduct during the investigation of the fitness to practise of a dental registrant. General Dental Council v KK & Anor [2024] EWHC 3053 (Fam) (25 November 2024)

The court said:-

“The contents of this judgment stand as a salutary warning to local authorities and to other public bodies concerned with fitness to practise in occupations concerned with or touching on the welfare of children. It is plain that there was a woeful ignorance about the confidential nature of documents produced for the purpose of care proceedings and about how requests for disclosure should be managed”

Registrants and the public must have confidence that the GDC staff is competent to manage fitness to practise cases fairly and consistent with the laws of the land. This case calls into question that confidence.

The GDC commenced fitness to practice proceedings against a dental technician in January 2019 following an anonymous email notifying the GDC that the registrant had been arrested and bailed while the police investigated allegations of assault of his wife and children. These were serious allegations that required investigation by the GDC. Family Court care proceedings had been commenced by the Local Authority to protect the children under the Children Act 1989. Neither the Local Authority nor the Court referred the registrant to the GDC. The GDC decided it needed more detailed information about the background to the case from the Local Authority.

Section 33(B) 2 of the Dentists Act 1984 as amended is regularly relied upon by the GDC staff to obtain information when investigations are under way, many organisations have received a standard letter threatening court proceedings if documents are not supplied to the GDC within 14 days.

Section 33B of the Dentists Act

(2)For the purpose of assisting the Council or any of their committees in carrying out functions under this Part in respect of a person’s fitness to practise as a dentist, the Council may require any person (except the person in respect of whom the information or document is sought) to supply any information or produce any document in his custody or under his control which appears to the Council relevant to the discharge of those functions.

(3)Nothing in this section shall require or permit any disclosure of information which is prohibited by any relevant enactment 

The GDC relied upon section 33B (2) to demand access to documents in the Local Authority’s file threatening court proceedings if its request was denied. It failed to mention section 33 B (3) that would have allowed the Local Authority to refuse its request. The Local Authority wrongly released a number of documents including some that had been used in the Family Court proceedings. The GDC went on to obtain witness statements from two social workers in the case and a lawyer that was involved in the Family Court proceedings.

Throughout the prolonged GDC process the registrant’s legal team continued to raise concerns about the way the GDC was conducting the case, seeking redactions and objecting to the use of documents. The GDC continued to rely upon documents that it should never have seen, for numerous Interim Orders hearings.

Finally, four years after the investigation started the GDC realised that it should have sought permission from the Family Court to use documents that had been used in the court proceedings, so it applied to the Court for that permission. At an initial hearing the Court ordered that the GDC must return or destroy every document that was wrongly disclosed to it.  The Court told the GDC that the Family Court proceedings were private and documents used in proceedings cannot be disclosed by anyone without the permission of the Court. It took months and months for the GDC to find all the documents it had received. Many of these documents had been shared with panellists, Counsel, solicitors and the defence team. All the documents had to be identified recovered and either destroyed or returned to the Local Authority. Even this task was incompetently managed. After an agreed extension, the Chief Executive signed a witness statement assuring the court that the documents had all been returned or destroyed only for someone to discover that a barrister still had a set of papers later that same day. Highly embarrassing for the new Chief Executive.

The GDC’s incompetence and failure in this case is extremely worrying. The number of legally qualified people that had their hands on these confidential court documents without ever asking themselves how the GDC obtained the documents is frightening. It is very basic law that the Family Court proceedings are confidential. Every solicitor and barrister involved should know this.

What does this say about the internal culture of the GDC? Does it say that the end justifies the means or is there a reluctance to raise concerns to managers? Or does it say that managers are so totally ignorant that they instruct juniors to press on regardless of the law? We have, of course, seen this in the past with the use of underguise investigators and numerous abuse of process cases.

The Family Court released its withering judgment on 25.11.24. The GDC and the Local Authority were ordered to pay all the costs of all the hearings including those of the registrant. The Court agreed to share a limited and redacted series of documents to allow the FTP case to proceed, after balancing the public interest in the GDC ensuring the protection of the public via FTP proceedings against the rights of the registrant to have a fair trial and that his private and family life is protected.

The GDC narrowly avoided contempt of court proceedings. The court decided not to name the individuals involved perhaps because there are too many. If they were named, they would need to be legally represented and provide their comments to the Court, further delaying proceedings at the GDC, wasting even more of the GDC registrants’ money.

But for the ignorance of those involved in the case, the FTP case could have proceeded years ago reducing the stress and anxiety for the registrant, and the GDC would have avoided a huge bill. It has been utterly disgraceful behaviour. The GDC should report itself to the Professional Standards Authority in the same as a registrant is required to report a serious untoward incident. The court of public opinion is unlikely to be as forgiving as the PSA.

The non-executive directors must hold the executive team to account for such a fundamental failing. As registrants are funding this nonsense, the GDC has an obligation to tell the profession what it is doing to ensure its' staff are properly trained to make sure this does not happen again.