Oh to see ourselves as others do: “Dentists Regulator Shamed by Unlawful Disclosure of Family Court Documents.”
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- Published: Thursday, 05 December 2024 11:25
- Written by Peter Ingle
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“O wad some Pow‘r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!” 1
When Robert Burns wrote these lines in 1786 he was contemplating how beneficial it would be for us to be able to see ourselves as others do. Insight, as the GDC might describe it.
It is a quality that the GDC expect registrants to display, particularly when they have not met the standards that the public should expect from them. Despite this, a recent court case has shown that they have something of a blind spot when it come to their own powers of insight.
As described in a recent GDPUK blog by Stephen Henderson, the GDC recently received a damming judgement from the Family Court following their repeated breaches of confidentiality during their pursuit of a fitness to practice case. The judgement spoke of the Council’s “lamentable ignorance” and they came close to being the subject of contempt of court proceedings.
At a time when the GDC are coming under increased scrutiny and have made some efforts to burnish their image, it is instructive to see their response. In a statement on their website the GDC put on a brave face. They ‘acknowledged’ the Court judgement and said that they had sought the material ‘in good faith.’ They say that this was as a result of ‘genuine error’ and ‘deficiency of understanding.’
The GDC claim that steps have now been taken to ensure that there is no repetition.
Clare Paget, Interim Executive Director of Legal and Governance at the GDC, said: “We take our responsibilities regarding the gathering and handling of sensitive information very seriously and have provided unreserved apologies to the Court and the individual concerned in respect of our failings in this case.”
She added: “We will continue to embed the measures that we have put in place to ensure that our approach to seeking disclosure of important material is conducted in line with the relevant legislative regimes to ensure that we can effectively protect the public and maintain confidence in the dental profession.” The Executive Director of Legal and Governance deserves some credit for being able to make saying that the GDC will try not to break the law again, sound such an achievement.
Clare Paget joined the GDC in March 2023 having started her practice as a Solicitor Advocate in criminal law. She assumed her current role in March 2024. It would appear that the failings in this particular case occurred during her predecessor’s term.
Andrea James is a professional discipline solicitor and Partner at Keystone Law. Linking to a piece written by Barry Baines, she wrote on X:
Anyone regulated by the General Dental Council @GDC_UK should be deeply concerned by this case, which reveals an astonishing lack of BASIC legal knowledge at multiple levels within the organisation. In the words of the Court "The GDC has been shamed by what occurred".…
— Andrea James (@HealthRegLawyer) November 27, 2024
The piece she referred to was written by Barry Baines, an experienced Regulatory and Disciplinary Lawyer. Posted on his website, it was headed: “Dentists Regulator Shamed by Unlawful Disclosure of Family Court Documents.”
In it, he wrote of the GDC using: “highly sensitive documents from care proceedings before the Family Court which were tainted by their improper acquisition from a local authority.” Furthermore: “It was obvious that this extensive disclosure was made in contravention of s12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960.”
Despite Clare Paget’s attempt to downplay the scale and duration of the abuse, it appears to have been thoroughly embedded within the GDC. As Barry Baines wrote: “The proceedings before the GDC had encompassed 11 interim order hearings; 4 extensions of the interim order in the High Court; 3 substantive hearings before the Professional Conduct Committee and 6 preliminary hearings before the Practice Committees. Consequently, the unauthorised disclosure was repeated in various orders and guises throughout the GDC’s data storage. A significant number of staff and external associates, such as counsel, had been involved with the proceedings. At the time the application for an extension of time was made, about 85 per cent of the 5,629 files in the main storage area still needed to be reviewed with other areas requiring substantial work, and at least 149 individuals needed to be contacted to ascertain whether they held unauthorised disclosure arising from their work on behalf of the GDC.”
He added that, “The explanations offered by each public body for their conduct arose from lamentable ignorance in both public bodies about (a) the confidential nature of Family Court proceedings and consequently (b) the need to obtain the court’s permission for any disclosure of Family Court documents.”
Clare Paget and her predecessor were not the only legally qualified GDC employees. We also know the GDC can, and do, obtain outside legal advice.
Another employment lawyer with experience of regulation described the GDC’s behaviour as appalling, and felt that it had the potential to collapse the family law proceedings. The dissemination of the material had been exacerbated by the GDC’s delays in their processes. As a result there were repeated interim orders proceedings so more panel members saw the documents. The GDC had struggled to say who had seen the documents and had needed to amend their witness statements.
That no one at the GDC appeared to have stopped to consider the impact of their processes upon the children of the family, let alone take specialist advice, was something that they found hard to believe. Indeed in their opinion both the GDC’s regulator the PSA, and their in house solicitors’ regulator, the SRA, should be subjecting those involved to scrutiny.
1). The Beauties of Burn’s Poems/To a Louse - Wikisource, the free online library
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