High Court grants Medical Council's application to suspend doctor's registration and ban practice pending further proceedings.

THE HIGH COURT

[APPROVED] [2025] IEHC 542

[REDACTED] (2025 435 MCA)

BETWEEN

MEDICAL COUNCIL

APPELLANT

AND

RS (A MEDICAL PRACTITIONER)

RESPONDENT

Ex tempore judgment of Mr. Justice David Barniville, President of the High Court, delivered on the 8th day of October 2025

1. Introduction

1. This is an application by the Medical Council for orders pursuant to s. 60 of the Medical Practitioners Act 2007 (the “2007 Act”). The orders which are sought include an order directing that the Respondent doctor’s registration on the register maintained by the Council be suspended until steps or further steps are taken under Part 7 and, if applicable, Parts 8 and 9 of the 2007 Act. In addition, an order is sought prohibiting the Respondent from engaging in the practise of medicine in this jurisdiction until such steps are taken.

Various ancillary orders are also sought, including an order that the Council be at liberty to provide a copy of any order made by the Court to certain named bodies including the Preliminary Proceedings Committee of the Medical Council, the Minister for Health, the Chief Executive Officer of the Health Service Executive and the Chief Executive Officer of the General Medical Council (the “GMC”) in the United Kingdom. Other orders sought include orders directing that the Medical Council to be at liberty to respond accurately to any request from any individual or body concerning the Respondent doctor’s registration status, as well as an order that the Council be at liberty to reflect any order made by the Court on the Council’s public facing register, and an order permitting the Council to provide a copy of the transcript of the hearing before the Medical Council and any transcript of the hearing before this court and all documentation relating to the Medical Council’s application to the Preliminary Proceedings Committee and the Monitoring Unit of the Medical Council.

2. The Hearing on 8 October 2025

2. The circumstances in which the application is made are set out in the affidavit sworn by Dr Suzanne Crowe, President of the Medical Council, on 9 September 2025. Before coming to that affidavit, I should say that the Respondent doctor has participated in the hearing of the application this afternoon remotely. At the outset of the hearing, it became clear that there were some difficulties with the sound quality of the device being used by the Respondent doctor to access the hearing. After a very short adjournment, it was possible to obtain better sound quality from the Respondent doctor’s device and, ultimately, it was possible for me to hear what the Respondent doctor had to say in response to the application by the Medical Council. The Respondent may have had some difficulty in hearing some of the application being made by Mr McDowell BL, counsel for the Medical Council, but I later summarised what Mr McDowell had said and, ultimately, I was satisfied that the hearing could proceed on a fair and appropriate basis.

3. It was also the case at the outset that the Respondent doctor informed me that, while he had received quite a lot of documentation from the Medical Council, he was not in a position to review and read all of that documentation. In particular, he informed me that he became upset and distressed when looking at the documentation and became panicked in such a way that that precluded him from reviewing and engaging with the documentation. He also informed me that he was not in a position to obtain legal representation either for the meeting of the Medical Council on 2 September 2025, or for the purposes of the hearing this afternoon. The Respondent doctor informed me that that was as a result of his current financial position, and he mentioned that he is managing to survive with the assistance of loans from friends. Ultimately, I asked that the Medical Council demonstrate that the Respondent doctor was properly served with all of the relevant papers, and I was provided with email correspondence that made clear to me that he had received all of the relevant documentation for the purposes of this application on two occasions by email, the first on 9 September 2025 and the second on the 2 October 2025 by email. In those circumstances, I was satisfied that it was appropriate that I should proceed with the hearing of the application this afternoon.

4. The Respondent doctor also made it clear that, insofar as there are serious allegations made against him, which are now the subject of criminal proceedings in the United Kingdom, that he fully contests and disputes those allegations and that he looks forward to successfully defending the allegations at the trial which may ultimately take place in the United Kingdom at some time next year. In the meantime, however, the Council understandably wishes to proceed with its application and has asked me to make the orders which I summarised earlier.

3. Dr Crowe’s Affidavit and the evidence before the Court

5. In the affidavit of Dr Crowe, it is pointed out that the Respondent doctor registered as a medical practitioner in Ireland in February 2023 and that he is registered in the General Division of the register which is maintained by the Medical Council. Notwithstanding his registration in Ireland, the Respondent currently resides in and has practised in the United Kingdom until recent events which have led to criminal charges against him and to the application by the Medical Council in this jurisdiction to suspend his registration. It seems that the current position, as of earlier this year, is that the Respondent doctor is still registered as a medical practitioner in the United Kingdom, but without a license to practise medicine there since early 2025. In April 2024, a number of conditions were attached to the Respondent’s registration in the UK.

6. The matter first came to the attention of the Medical Council in Ireland in July 2024 when the GMC in the United Kingdom informed the Medical Council that certain conditions had been attached to the Respondent doctor’s registration by the GMC. The attachment of these conditions raised concerns about the Respondent’s fitness to practise. Those conditions included a condition that, except in life threatening emergencies, the Respondent must not carry out remote or in-person consultations with patients younger than 18 years without a chaperone present.

7. The circumstances in which those conditions were attached to the Respondent doctor’s registration were not, however, set out in the initial documentation furnished to the Council. However, there was sufficient material for the Chief Executive Officer of the Council to make a complaint in relation to the Respondent to the Preliminary Proceedings Committee in July 2024, and that was done. Further information was obtained on 30 October 2024 by the Medical Council from the GMC in the UK concerning the underlying allegations against the Respondent in that jurisdiction. That information disclosed that the GMC had received a referral from an NHS Foundation Trust in February 2024 noting that the Respondent had been arrested in January 2024 on suspicion of distribution of indecent images of children. The information received also set out that the Respondent had been released on bail with conditions including that he would not have unsupervised contact with anyone under the age of 18 years. In addition, it was said that the police had found patient details at the Respondent doctor’s property. That, I think, is not relevant to the present application. It was also set out that a file relating to a police investigation, which was at that point being conducted by the relevant police force, had been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision. Reference was also made to certain allegations in relation to the Respondent doctor’s clinical competence. Again, I do not think that that issue is relevant for present purposes.

8. The contents of the information received was of major concern to the Medical Council at that stage as, when the Respondent doctor had provided his Annual Retention Application Form (“ARAF”) for 2024, he was asked certain questions. Among the questions at Question 8, was whether he was aware of any criminal investigations in existence against him or whether he had ever been convicted of any criminal offence either in this jurisdiction or in another jurisdiction, to which he answered “No”. The Respondent did so at a time when he had already been arrested and interviewed on suspicion of having engaged in serious criminal conduct in January 2024, some six months before he signed the ARAF on 3 June 2024.

9. Certain further information was provided by the GMC to the Medical Council in the course of 2025 and, in particular, in July 2025, the Medical Council was furnished with material in relation to the interviews conducted by the investigating police force and the circumstances in which they conducted the criminal investigation. That information which was provided to the Medical Council in July 2025 contained substantial further background material in relation to the allegations. It must be stressed, however, that these are simply allegations at this stage, although they are obviously extremely serious in nature, and they have not been the subject of any findings by any court or tribunal. It seems that the allegations will ultimately be the subject of a criminal trial in the United Kingdom. The allegations were summarised in the material received by the Medical Council in July 2025 as follows. It was set out that in October 2023, the relevant police force received information to the effect that between December 2022 and February 2023, six indecent images of children were uploaded to the internet using a Google account associated with a particular email address and it said that that email address can be connected to the Respondent doctor. It was said that two of the videos were Category A and four were Category B images and that uploads were carried out at a number of specified locations in City A and City B on various dates between December 2022 and February 2023. It is said that the information provided by the investigating police force was to the effect that the uploads had been carried out using an email address which is connected to the Respondent. It is said that that email address was created in March 2020 and registered in the name of the Respondent. It is then said that the Respondent was arrested on 26 January 2024 and that a number of electronic devices were seized from his address. Two of those devices, namely, a white Samsung mobile phone and a Dell laptop were sent for a digital forensic examination, and the following results were returned. There were 146 Category A indecent images or videos of children, 64 Category B indecent images or videos of children, 52 Category C indecent images or videos of children,

56 images or videos of extreme pornography and prohibited images. It is said that those results appeared across both seized devices which were sent for digital forensic examination.

10. The material provided to the Medical Council in July 2025 disclosed that on his first interview, the Respondent doctor stated that he had uploaded naked pictures of himself to his Google drive but that he had never viewed and was never in the possession of child pornography. In his second interview, the doctor had answered “no comment” to all questions asked. There is further material provided in respect of those interviews furnished in the material provided to the Council in July 2025. Videos of the interviews were also provided to the Medical Council. I do not propose to go through the detail of those interviews. It is, again, important to stress that the Respondent doctor made clear to the Medical Council at its meeting on 2 September 2025 and to the Court today that he strenuously denies the allegations against him.

11. It seems from the material provided to the Medical Council that the Respondent doctor was charged with a number of criminal charges on 22 January 2025. They include charges that between 7 July 2020 and 3 July 2023 that the Respondent doctor was, contrary to UK legislation, in possession of 19 extreme pornographic images which portrayed in an explicit and realistic way a person performing an act of intercourse with a live unknown animal which was grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character. The second charge was that, contrary to UK legislation, the Respondent had, between those same dates, made 52 indecent images of a child. The third charge is that between those same dates, contrary to UK legislation, the Respondent made 146 Category A images of children. Again, I stress that these are charges which have been brought against the Respondent doctor and that they have not yet been the subject of any finding by any court or tribunal or any verdict of any jury. The Respondent doctor informed me this afternoon that he has already appeared in court in the UK in respect of these charges and that he expects to appear before the Crown Court in City A at some time in 2026.

4. The Council Meeting on 2 September 2025

12. Having obtained that information and the video recordings of the Respondent’s interviews, Dr Crowe explains and provides some detail as to what the relevant categories the subject of the material found are alleged to be. I do not propose to go into those, but they are obviously very serious alleged offences involving child pornographic material. Having considered all of that material, the Medical Council decided that it should hold a meeting. It did so on 2 September 2025 and considered whether it was necessary to make an application to the High Court under s. 60 of the 2007 Act. The Respondent doctor attended that meeting remotely and at the outset sought an adjournment of the meeting in circumstances where he felt overwhelmed, had been unable to obtain legal representation, and was stressed. It seems that he had provided what was termed by him as a “sick note” in advance of the meeting, suggesting that he was unfit for work. The Council considered that application and decided that it had good reasons for proceeding with the meeting. In fairness to the Respondent doctor, he remained at the meeting and provided responses to the allegations against him. He made clear that he was denying those allegations against him. The point has been made by Mr McDowell BL for the Medical Council, and I think it is a reasonable point, that there was no explanation provided by the Respondent doctor as to why he answered “No” when asked on the ARAF whether he was aware of any criminal investigation in existence against him or whether he had ever been convicted of any criminal offence either in this jurisdiction or in another jurisdiction in circumstances where it was clear that he had already been arrested and had been interviewed in respect of the matters that subsequently led to the criminal charges when he completed his ARAF on 3 June 2024. This was obviously a cause for concern for the Council.

13. The Council considered the matter carefully at its meeting. It heard submissions on behalf of the Chief Executive Officer of the Medical Council and heard a response from the Respondent doctor who tried, as best he could, set out his position. I acknowledge that he expressed difficulty in doing so and was not legally represented. The Council also heard from the Legal Assessor, whose role it is to keep the Council right on matters of law and on the relevant legal principles to be applied. The Legal Assessor also explained the situation to the Respondent doctor in the course of that meeting. Having heard the submissions and the advice given by the Legal Assessor, the Council decided that it should bring this application to the High Court. It set out its reasons for that decision and they are set out in a separate document and are also contained in the transcript of the meeting before the Council which I have had the opportunity of reading in advance of the hearing today.

14. In its reasoning for its decision to bring this application to the High Court, the Council stated as follows. “1. The Council had regard to the information provided to it, submissions on behalf of the CEO and the submissions made by [the Respondent doctor] and the legal advice.”

2. The Council is acutely aware of its obligations pursuant to section 60 of the Medical Practitioner’s Act 2007 and should only make such an application when it considers that suspension is necessary to protect the public until further steps can be taken under the Act.

3. In this case, [the Respondent doctor] has been charged in England with child sexual abuse including by way of images, both Category A and B. The Council acknowledges that [the Respondent doctor] denies the allegations and the matter is being dealt with by the police currently.

4. The Council is satisfied that this is a very serious case and that there is material with the British police which may connect [the Respondent doctor] and his devices and locations with the material discovered on such devices.

5. In the event that a finding was made in a Fitness to Practise setting, the sanction would be likely at the higher end, i.e. cancellation.

6. In the opinion of [the] Council, [the Respondent doctor] is currently free to come to Ireland and commence the practise of medicine.

7. In the opinion of [the] Council, the risk prospective of harm to the public is potentially very high in this case. Counsel considers that the case against [the Respondent doctor] is very serious and is apparently quite strong.

8. For all the foregoing reasons, the Council considers that there is a significant risk of danger to the public unless an application is made to the High Court for an order suspending [the Respondent doctor] from the register.

9. A matter of further serious concern to the Council was the failure by [the Respondent doctor] to disclose the existence of criminal proceedings and conditions to his registration in his Annual Retention Application Form in 2024.”

15. Those are the reasons the Council gave for bringing this application. The application now comes before the Court in the circumstances which I have indicated. The Respondent doctor has patiently observed and participated in the hearing and made his submissions at the outset in which he explained his very difficult situation to the Court. He explained his firm intention to contest the allegations and to contest the criminal charges against him. He made clear that he did not see that he was in any way a threat to public safety. He accepted that public safety was the most important aspect to be considered in this application and he contended that he was not in any way a danger to the public. He stressed that he was not a criminal and that he had been doing his best to address the allegations against him and that he was facing up to those allegations. I am proceeding on the basis, therefore, that the Respondent doctor is opposing the Council’s application.

5. Summary of Legal Principles

16. There are well established legal principles that the Court has to apply in an application such as this. The application has been brought under s. 60 of the 2007 Act. In that section, it is made very clear that the Court, in hearing such an application, will make orders where it is satisfied that they are necessary to protect the public. That is the focus of the Court on an application such as this. The legal principles have been considered and summarised in a number of judgments of the High Court and Supreme Court. They were summarised recently by me in a judgment I gave in the case of Dental Council v A Dentist [2024] IEHC

731 delivered on 1 November 2024. Criminal allegations were also made against the respondent dentist in that case, albeit criminal charges were not ultimately brought in that case, and so the principles are relevant. I will summarise those principles as follows.

(1) The court has a very wide discretion and a broad jurisdiction in terms of the possible orders it may make in an application such as this.

(2) The court’s task on such an application is to assess whether it is in the public interest that the order sought may be made. As Geoghegan J. stated in the Supreme Court in O’Ceallaigh v. An Bord Altranais [2000] 4 IR 54, the “paramount consideration” in an application such as this is whether the orders sought are necessary to prevent “immediate danger to the public” (at p. 133).

(3) On such an application, the court is not deciding the underlying complaint. It does not resolve conflicts of evidence and does not make findings of fact. That is the position in relation to all such applications, but it is particularly important in relation to those allegations which are also alleged to amount to criminal conduct which may be the subject of criminal investigation or criminal proceedings.

(4) Before an application such as this may be brought by the relevant professional disciplinary body, such as the Medical Council in this case, it was stated by Barron J. in the Supreme Court in O’Ceallaigh that the relevant body must be satisfied of the following three matters:

(a) that the complaint is a serious one in terms of the conduct complained of;

(b) that the case is a strong one against the relevant professional; and

(c) that, in the event of an adverse finding in fitness to practise proceedings, the appropriate sanction would be to “strike off” the practitioner either permanently or for a defined period. As noted by Kelly P. in Medical Council v. FCM [2018] IEHC 616, other serious sanctions such as a conditional registration and cessation from practice until certain conditions are fulfilled would also meet the test. In considering whether to make the orders sought on such an application, the court must also be satisfied of those three matters.

(5) Even if the court is satisfied of these three matters, because of the significant adverse consequences for the registered professional where an interim suspension order is sought to be made, in terms of his or her constitutional rights to a good name and reputation and to earn a livelihood, the courts have repeatedly stressed that such an order should only be made “when no other order would serve to protect the community” (as stated by Morris J. in Medical Council v. Whelan (Unreported), High Court, 20th February, 2001) and should be reserved for “exceptional cases” (as stated by Kelly J. in Casey v. Medical Council [1999] 2 I.R. 534 at 549).

(6) Because suspension orders are reserved for exceptional cases and should only be made when no other order or measure would adequately protect the public or address the issues of public concern arising, consideration should be given in each case as to whether or not appropriate undertakings should be accepted in place of interim suspension orders. The question of undertakings is not, however, relevant in this case. None have been offered by the Respondent and none have been sought by the Council.

(7) In each case, the court must engage in a balancing exercise between the public interest (in terms of the need to protect the public) which is said to be served by the interim suspension orders sought and the various constitutional rights of the relevant professional. The court must decide in each case and on the basis of the particular facts of the case where the balance should be drawn. In particular, the court must ask itself whether, on the particular facts, the public interest and the need to protect the public outweigh the constitutional rights of the professional to a good name and reputation and to earn a livelihood.

(8) Where the professional is the subject of a criminal investigation or criminal proceedings, a significant factor to be weighed in the balance is the presumption of innocence to which the practitioner is entitled. However, the presumption of innocence does not amount to a legal or jurisdictional bar to an interim suspension order being made where the professional is the subject of a criminal investigation or criminal proceedings. The presumption of innocence is, however, an important factor to be weighed in the balance. Ultimately, the court must determine whether the public interest in terms of the need to protect the public trumps all of the other rights and interests involved, including the professional’s entitlement to the presumption of innocence.

17. Those are the legal principles which I will adopt and apply in determining the Council’s application in this case. I should also note that the Medical Council has prepared a Guidance Note on “Immediate Suspension Orders” and that has particular provisions which apply where the Council is dealing with allegations of sexual misconduct. They include allegations relating to child pornography. That Guidance Note makes clear that in such cases, the Council has to consider the necessity to protect the public and must consider the particular facts of each case as well the nature of the criminal investigations and charges. I am satisfied that the Council did consider all of the relevant matters that it ought to consider and so the Council’s s. 60 application is now before me. In deciding this application, I have applied the legal principles which I have summarised earlier.

6. Decision on the Council’s Application

18. I am satisfied that the allegations against the Respondent doctor are extremely serious. I stress that those allegations have not been the subject of any findings, and I make no findings on this application in respect of those allegations. In terms of the three-part test in O’Ceallaigh, I am satisfied that the allegations are very serious and that the case does appear to be a strong case in the sense that I have been provided with material in which it is said that the police authorities can connect the Respondent doctor to the devices on which very serious images of child pornography were found. Again, I acknowledge that the Respondent doctor’s position is that he was not responsible for the presence of any of that material on his devices. He sought to put forward in the first interview with the police authorities in the United Kingdom various alternative explanations as to how that material may have been on his devices. However, I am not deciding that issue here. What I have to decide is whether or not the case appears to be a strong one and it does, on the face of it, appear to be a strong one in my view. Lastly, I have to be satisfied that in the event that there are adverse findings against the Respondent doctor in fitness to practise proceedings in this jurisdiction based on those allegations, the appropriate sanction would be a serious one, potentially including cancellation of his registration. I am quite satisfied that if the allegations here are ultimately upheld in a fitness to practise process involving the Respondent, the appropriate sanction would be cancellation in this case. It is hard to imagine anything more serious than the matters that are being alleged against the Respondent which are the subject of the criminal charges currently pending in the United Kingdom. Of course, I am not making any finding in relation to those. I am simply saying that if they are ultimately upheld in fitness to practise proceedings in this jurisdiction, the likely sanction would be cancellation.

19. As Mr McDowell BL for the Medical Council acknowledges, and as the legal principles I summarised earlier make clear, that is not the end of the matter. Even where the Court is satisfied of those three matters as set out in O’Ceallaigh, the Court must still engage in a balancing exercise between the need to ensure the public is protected and the constitutional rights enjoyed by the professional, in this case, the constitutional right to earn a livelihood and the constitutional right to a good name and reputation that the Respondent doctor enjoys. In respect of both of those constitutional rights, I accept the submission made on behalf of the Medical Council that there should not be much weight attached to the Respondent doctor’s right to earn a livelihood in this jurisdiction in circumstances where he has never, in fact, sought to practise medicine in this jurisdiction and where his strong preference, as appears in the transcript of the meeting before the Medical Council on 2 September 2025, is that he would clear his name and practise medicine in the United Kingdom. In those circumstances where the Respondent doctor is not working as a doctor in this jurisdiction, has no immediate plans to practise medicine in this jurisdiction and where he is prohibited from practising medicine as things stand in the United Kingdom (by reason of his current registration status in the jurisdiction), I do not think that much weight can be attached to any constitutional right to earn a livelihood in this jurisdiction. In terms of any constitutional right to a good name and reputation, it seems to me important to note, in carrying out the required balancing exercise, that the allegations are now the subject of criminal charges which will take their course in the United Kingdom and, ultimately, I do not consider in these particular circumstances that the Respondent’s constitutional right to a good name and reputation should trump the need to ensure that the public is protected in this jurisdiction.

20. In terms of the presumption of innocence, it is important to stress that the Respondent doctor does, under Irish law, enjoy a presumption of innocence. Nothing that I say in this ruling should be interpreted in any way as seeking to undermine that presumption. As far as I am concerned, the Respondent doctor continues to enjoy the presumption of innocence. However, while that is a factor which I must consider in the balancing exercise that I have to undertake, it does not amount to a bar or a jurisdictional obstacle to granting the orders sought by the Medical Council, as I mentioned earlier.

21. Ultimately, I am satisfied that the public interest does favour the granting of the orders sought by the Medical Council in this case. I am satisfied that the three matters that must be established for the purposes of the O’Ceallaigh test have been established in this case, and I am satisfied on the basis of the balancing exercise that I must carry out that, ultimately, the need the ensure the public is protected must prevail over the other factors to be included in the balance, including those constitutional rights which I have mentioned and the presumption of innocence which the doctor does clearly enjoy.

7. Orders to be made

22. For all of those reasons, I will grant the various orders sought by the Medical Council at paragraphs 1-6 of the Originating Notice of Motion. Those orders will remain in place until steps or further steps are taken under Part 7 and, if applicable, Parts 8 and 9 of the 2007 Act. Liberty to apply will be afforded to both parties to vary or discharge of the orders made in any way, and costs are reserved.