Public hearing attended in person by our Manchester correspondent:
Dr. Prashant Jindal, respected as one of the best refractive eye surgeon in the UK, is responsible for many game-changing innovations in the field, treating the most complex of cases. He has also successfully treated numerous Hollywood celebrities, heads of state, peak performance athletes & Olympic gold medallists besides being a best-selling author.
Dr Jindal with Shane Warne
A group, involved in extorting from top doctors, is led by a reporter, Nicola Dowling of the BBC. She has a team for this and has deep connections in the media and the GMC. Frustrated by being unable to find a single clinical issue against the doctor, her strategy changed to finding a non-clinical issue.
Ms Nicola Dowling of the BBC
Dowling then found two patients (operated on in 2011 & 2016 resp). She provided audio-visual recording equipment to them and coached them to visit clinics, and lodge false complaints but not to allow any examination of their eyes. The media house also lodged false complaints with the police of fraud to incite an arrest. Parallelly, a false compensation claim in court was filed, and offers were sent via solicitors to settle by paying up, which Dr. Jindal refused to and opted to fight in the court.
It is claimed that they were helped in their efforts with the support of a labor party MP, Mr.John McDonell, who has been contacted and whose response is awaited.
MP John Mcdonnell
It is claimed that they were helped in their efforts with the support of a labor party MP, Mr.John McDonell, whose response is awaited.
Seeing that Dr. Jindal refused to budge from the extortion efforts, the media team wrote to the General Medical Council, the GMC, that she represented two patients who allege that Dr. Jindal was not present during their surgery and was out of the country during one of the surgeries. Despite no cogent evidence, the GMC entertained these seemingly vexatious and personal complaints and ordered a full court hearing on the matter. A complete well-planned 3-prong attack was adopted by the media team and offered to settle with money were sent again.
The public hearing in the GMC was attended by our UK correspondent and all documents were requested from the GMC.
Sandy Miller, the first patient, is a skiing instructor in Switzerland, a high-end sport needing precision vision ( www.mountainrelish.com ). He had been blackmailing (evidence made available), asking for money from the clinic, at the behest that there was cheaper treatment available at the time and he paid more. He first lodged a complaint in the General Optical Council, the GOC against Dr. Jindal’s assistant, to blackmail for payment and then later apologized to him for making a false complaint (apology letter available with Writer). Ms. Dowling’s team wrote to the GMC to hold a trial against Dr. Jindal stating even though the patient’s eyes were absolutely fine, the patient claimed that Dr. Jindal did not operate on him. No reason was discernible why Miller realized this 7 years after surgery. He inadvertently, during the hearing slipped, by saying that there were people in the surgery which he was not sure of.
The second patient, a carpenter turned boxer, Greg Brady, claimed that Dr. Prashant Jindal was in Spain when he was operated upon and that he realized this a few years later when watching an interview of Dr. Jindal on TV. He said he has gone blind and presented pictures of massively injured eyes and face, which are found to be actually due to post-boxing injuries.
Owing to pressure from the powerful media house, the Metropolitan police appointed its top detectives on the unbelievable case. Videos were found of Mr. Brady walking perfectly well on the busy streets of London. Also found were numerous pictures posted by Mr. Brady on social media showing how happy and clear-visioned he was after his eye surgery. Although Mr. Brady removed the photos when lodging the false complaint, these were dug out online from google cache. Brady was shown and asked about them in court- to which no plausible answer was available and the lies clear to the jury).
Sufficient evidence was available that Dr.Jindal was in the country, present in the clinic and carried out the surgery. He had also operated on another ten patients the same day. Eight months later, the police dismissed the case, but surprisingly, took no action against Mr.Brady for the false complaint.
Dr.Jindal’s lawyers provided all the above evidence to the GMC, including that of police along with CCTV footage, photos, and witnesses of him being in the country and of operating on the day. However, despite the plethora of evidence, the GMC refused to dismiss the case.
The GMC appointed a leading eye surgeon as an expert on the cases, whose reports on both cases (available with PTI) confirmed that there was no lack of care or duty and that the treatment was done perfectly. The case was filed by GMC in MPTS (Medical Practitioners Tribunal), a court that belongs to and is accountable to the GMC. Instead of protecting the truth and investigating, the GMC instead sued the doctor in its own court and appointed a prosecution lawyer to do his utmost to erase the doctor from the register.
The hearing was widely published and was attended by all leading media houses. Ms. Dowling was given special permission to record the entire hearing. The two patients admitted to having been set up by Nicola Dowling and their evidence proved far from the truth. All the recordings were played and showed the patients to be guilty of misleading the court, leaving a pale Ms. Dowling.
The GMC fielded the top & highest-paid barrister of the country, as the prosecutor, who without any evidence, alleged that Dr.Jindal was not in the country during surgery and that all his defense evidence & documents, including even the credit card statements, were false. He had regular meetings with Ms. Dowling throughout the hearing, something completely against the norms.
During the hearing, members of the Jury complained that the same media team of Ms.Dowling, has illegally approached them in their hotels, whilst the hearing was still going on. They were pressurized to give a decision against Dr.Jindal. The result of the hearing has been postponed due to all this. No police action however has been taken against the media team for all these activities. The whole incident has sent shock waves in UK’s Asian doctor’s community.
Despite numerous efforts, Dr.Jindal refused to comment till the judgment. It is noteworthy that despite only about 5% of the doctors in the UK being Indians, they account for almost 50% of the MPTS cases. Many doctors are unable to afford or fight against the powerful GMC and surrender their registration rather than fighting back.
We have spoken to the GMC after Sasha’s blog in which she mentioned approaching the panel. It is surprising that the GMC concealed this fact from the media in a public hearing and it only got out due to Sasha Rodoys’s own blog.
Full coverage of the hearing coming in the next article.
Images from Sasha Rodoy’s blog where she mentions herself approaching the panel and the patient’s names:
