The Respondent sent letters and emails in December 2021 threatening legal action to a GP surgery and to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (“MHRA”).

In the first allegation it was said the Respondent had sent a letter on behalf of his client (“Client A”) requesting that the Medical Practice where Client A was registered provide him with an exemption from the vaccine mandate so he could travel to Brazil without self-isolating. The letter suggested that by following current government guidance the Medical Practice was guilty, amongst other things, of unethical and criminal conduct. The letter threatened legal proceedings should the exemption be refused and to that extent it was a letter before action.

In the second allegation it was said that the Respondent improperly threatened the MHRA with injunction proceedings on behalf of three clients, two of whom were medical students who had been unable to take work placements required in their studies because they refused vaccination. The correspondence accused the MHRA of unethical conduct, malfeasance, misfeasance and corporate manslaughter and made demands for certain undertakings to be given to avert legal proceedings being commenced.

The Respondent denied the allegations and gave evidence setting out his genuine belief in the matters advanced in his letters.

The Tribunal found all the allegations proved on the balance of probabilities. The findings included two breaches of Principle 5 of the Principles 2019 i.e. the Respondent had lacked integrity.

The Tribunal found that the letters before action had been a tactical device to draw the recipients into litigation and thereby allow the Respondent and his clients to present their cause in the public setting of the court room. The Respondent had not been open and transparent about his motives and the correspondence had set out confused and legally baseless arguments in an unduly aggressive and intimidating way.

This went beyond a mere mistaken approach as to wording and style and represented a level of disingenuousness and belligerence which was so disproportionate that it constituted professional misconduct.