The Troubles

Given our Irish origins, ‘The Troubles’is the term my family chose to describe that time in our lives when we felt very vulnerable following a friendship which went wrong. Now that common sense has prevailed and truth established, we feel able to share our story:

 We'd known her since she started school with our daughter, and she gradually became a family friend. Along with many other young people, she asked to join our family on a variety of experiences, trips and programs when she was a teenager. We were aware she'd experienced domestic instability and felt sorry for her. In 2015, when in her 20's, she contacted us again for advice and support over several issues. I helped her change universities, we stored her possessions, and my wife washed her clothes after she'd said she'd fallen out with both her parents. We believed her. She asked us to take her running, and shortly after we'd helped her complete a sponsored half marathon, she asked me to help her run a marathon. When I told her that I'd recently provided medical care in Iraq for Syrians fleeing persecution, she suggested we used the event to seek sponsorship for Syrian refugees. I agreed and we were pledged a substantial sum. When I told her of South Sudanese refugees in Kenya whom I ‘d been invited to help, she asked if she could be involved and suggested visiting them with me. I was wary, concerned that it might be challenging for her, but agreed we may be able to help. She said that if I booked tickets, she would repay me, which she did. I arranged for us to provide an educational program for the refugees but shortly before our flight in July 2017 she pulled out and went elsewhere on holiday instead, losing her airfare and leaving us in the lurch. I suggested we end our support for her.

On my return she apologised, saying she didn't want to lose her ‘friend and confidante’, and wished she'd come with me after all. She asked for another chance, promising she still intended to run the marathon, only to withdraw from this too late on. She'd told us of her mental health issues, so when she asked to join our overseas project team, I declined her request after discussing the situation with her mother. However, she then successfully applied to join through the university, obtaining a funded place. I consulted a psychiatrist friend who advised that if I broke contact, the outcome might be 'catastrophic' for her. People who had known her advised us to be cautious. We agonised over what to do. I told her that I was willing to remain a mentor but wasn't comfortable being a friend due to her erratic behaviour. She promised never to harm us, but then sent a series of angry, contradictory messages. At this point I made a big mistake. I stayed in touch with her (and with the rest of my project team) while I established our overseas research base for 6 weeks in late 2017. I wrongly assessed that her risk of serious self-harm, if she perceived abandonment, was greater than any risk of her harming us. I was unaware of the complexity of her condition. I clumsily and unwisely tried to reassure and reason with her. We have regretted this ever since, but it came from a genuine desire to act in what we then believed to be her best interests.

When I returned home, I learnt her father had asked me to speak to him. I dropped a note through his door outlining events and agreed to his request. Police then called and said she and her parents claimed I was harassing them. We felt bewildered and betrayed. Later investigations revealed that she had forwarded them all my messages, including a description of my successfully resuscitating a young person. She'd insinuated that this was an example of how I got close to vulnerable people. She had withheld the many messages she'd sent me and did not tell the police that she'd joined my team or that her father had asked me to talk to him. When the first force she contacted had said I had no case to answer, she'd approached another force.

They said she had demanded my arrest and wanted them to prosecute me for harassment. Initially they believed her story, but when I shared her correspondence, the truth became evident. She insisted on involving the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) who refused to prosecute me and told me they didn't believe her. She asked for a restraining order which we successfully appealed. The Judge said she'd not been honest and that if she'd told the truth, no action would have been necessary. She then involved the General Medical Council (GMC). We were summoned to an interim GMC Hearing who felt no action was needed. Soon afterwards, she followed me to the town in Africa where she knew my project team, students and I were based. Fortunately, we had been warned and I avoided her. We later learned that she was reported for ‘inappropriate behaviour’ to the authorities by the guides she had hired there.

Along with her parents, she then contacted various organisations and friends of ours, telling them I'd ‘abused’ her. She tried to persuade mutual contacts from our community to disown us. This backfired as people rallied to our support, revealing a long history of inter-personal conflict of which we’d been unaware. She compiled a 299-page document which she submitted to the GMC in 2019, asking them to strike me off the medical register. After I’d spent the covid pandemic working on the front line, in 2022 the GMC asked me to attend a Hearing of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS). She provided untruthful evidence, claiming we'd not been friends and that she'd never asked us for help. She argued with the Barrister and said I'd caused her distress by continuing contact in late 2017. Despite apologising and demonstrating that she had lied to the GMC and MPTS in both her written and verbal statements, I was given a 6-months suspension from practising medicine in the UK. This precipitated an arrhythmia in my wife and depression in me. We spent those 6-months working and travelling in Africa, Asia, America and Australia. Several of my patients suffered serious adverse outcomes because my expertise was denied to them as no cover was found. The African refugees and street children we support also suffered. We believe that she and her parents were responsible for a newspaper article in which it was claimed that I'd admitted harassing her and had asked her 'to come on holiday'. When we showed the Editor that these statements were untrue, the newspaper duly apologised to us.

During my 6-months away, she approached a third police force to further claim that my family and I were stalking her and contacting her by proxy. These claims were fictitious and readily disproved. She and her mother then involved the GMC again. They said I was orchestrating a campaign against her: that my wife and I were cycling up and down her street, that our son had sent her a card, and that I had turned her friends against her, all of which were false. She contacted my African Charities and, with her mother, visited a UK refugee support agency that our family has volunteered with for years. She told them that I was 'a dangerous doctor' who only volunteered to gain access to vulnerable people. The organisation reported them to the police who investigated the situation and explored their background. Police told me that she was known to 4 forces and asked if we wanted to pursue charges. We declined, not wanting her prospects harmed after helping her at university. Police called them and warned them to stop harassing us.

Despite this, her mother approached the GMC again, apparently asking for immunity from the police, which was declined. This time we were more proactive in our defence. We showed the GMC evidence of everything which had happened from the outset. They admitted that they had been weaponised against us and that these claims were entirely unsupported. We asked the MPTS for a review of my Hearing. They spent nearly a year reviewing all written and verbal evidence. In 2024, they admitted that they couldn't explain their decision to suspend me. They apologised for their lack of insight into the underlying conditions associated with her behaviour and false allegations. They adjusted their training policy to incorporate these conditions and prevent a recurrence. The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) published an interview with me in which we discussed the GMC referral process and suggested how it might be improved to avoid future miscarriages of justice. The GMC then duly reviewed and revised their protocols. The University apologised in person for her behaviour. We had asked them to allow her to complete her degree, but they said they would not want her back at the campus. My work with the university continued, and she and her parents have since left us in peace.

There have been other more positive outcomes. Following my initial visit in July 2017, we built a school back in South Sudan to support returning refugees and improve access to education for all in that country which has the lowest access to primary education in the world. We also developed a rehabilitation home for street children in Uganda and donated to the Syrian refugee support agency after I completed the marathon myself in late 2017. Additionally, we established a professional clinical service to support the health care needs of neurodivergent people in the UK who are often misunderstood and frequently describe feeling unsupported. My team and I have published widely on our clinical and research work in this area which has won national recognition from the RCP. There has been recent recognition of the association between neurodivergence and conflict, with obsessive behaviour, paranoia and impulsivity all contributing to the overrepresentation of neurodivergent people among offenders arrested and convicted. Our work highlights the importance of providing insight and support for neurodivergent offenders, rather than incarcerating them. There is a silver lining to every cloud: if we’d never known and supported her, it is very possible that none of this would have been achieved.