Dr Michael Webberley

The tweeting then gets a little confusing because it seems to move to Patient U (potential mishear of w?) but it is utterly shocking. A young person in supported living, receiving counselling due to borderline personality disorder and on antipsychotic meds (respiridone ffs) with a history of auditory hallucinations that they act upon, and what does MW do? Lob testosterone at them! No consideration around capacity or multidisciplinary working, no, just more meds. Wtaf was he thinking and how can he live with himself?! It's utterly appalling. Like others have said, how is this not criminal???

Re: Patient W, discussing consent & treatment:

AK: there was enough information in the first written questionnaire, to seek permission to liaise with other professionals and CAMHS, and to offer W mental health support to explore gender identity. Makes reference to 15 suicide attempts, including one in the previous 30 days.

SJ: MW makes no attempt to assess W himself or ensure further assessments by other professionals.
What evidence do you see of MW making assessment of what's going on etc.
AK: No evidence of MW considering further assessment. Talks about medications.

AK: my experience of testosterone therapy is that it can be very difficult especially if there is history of disregulating emotions.
SJ: there is then a period of disengagement.
AK: after they start testosterone they stop payment. But then they come back.

SJ: there is then re-engagement with the patient. Lead counsellor is noting that I've just had a chat with U, is looking to restart prescription, Patient has not had a good time recently, [further background not provided]. What should have happened before any further

SJ: prescribing?
AK: there should have been a thorough psychological assessment and liaison with mental health professionals. There is a diagnosis overhang and all problems put down to gender distress. The patient had reported sexual violence also.

Tribunal resumes this morning. Dr Kieran is up to give her evidence. She's a clinical psychologist from NIreland who works in their GIDS service. I'll try to C&P some of it today but alas, I must work at some point!

There must be a crime of exploiting vulnerable people for financial gain.

Is that not what this is? A medical protection racket? "Pay us or your kid will kill themselves"

That Dr HW was no longer a credible MDT member as she was subject to an interim order of suspension;

that should be relevant to her case too as it suggests she was breaching her suspension/passing herself off as something she was not (a registered health professional)

All of the charges are up on Tribunal Tweets2 (I'm late to the party) and it reads as bad as the tweets. Allegations such as:

You failed to declare:
Your lack of qualifications to manage the care of minors;
That Dr HW was no longer a credible MDT member as she was subject to an interim order of suspension;

Detailed an inadequate MDT make-up;

Stated that:

GnRHa was required to entirely prevent the onset of puberty in suspected transgender minors, which is contrary to expert guidance;

There was a 50% risk of attempted suicide in young transgender clients, which was not based upon UK statistics;

Dr TS was a Consultant Clinical Psychologist, when she was a qualified counsellor

I'm going to look at the rest now.

Does anyone know what's happening with HW? I thought hers was due to restart soon?

I’m not on Twitter. Could someone who is perhaps @soniasodha with a link to the Tribunaltweets and a quick explanation of what the case is about? She seems willing to go where others fear to tread.

In other words, Manderley, MW is applying the standards applied to transgender medicine to other medicine; self diagnosis, affirmation, self prescribing, and lack of evidence base for treatments.

[quote DomesticatedZombie]www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/ill-treatment-or-wilful-neglect-offences-sections-20-25-criminal-justice-and-courts[/quote]
I did wonder about this. I think the guilty mind aspect of ill-treatment might be tricky (though who knows what they’d find in private communications if they could get a warrant to look), but RQ’s evidence about untreated symptoms seems to fit willful neglect? It’s only 5 years max though. So fraud might be better, but then evidence from victims more critical?

I'd donate to tribunal tweets. Has anyone found a way?

Excellent point, Manderley.

One thing that struck me - the fact that he was also wrongly treating men with testosterone for non gender reasons has made this hearing more likely, and will make it more likely they will find against him. Children's gender medicine has been surrounded by a cloud of mystery. It came out in the keira judicial reviews and Sonia Appleby case. It has been treated differently than other areas - less evidence underpinning treatment, a weird language that obfuscates whats going on, the feeling that its so so specialist other doctors can't judge, verbosity and slippage in testimonies by key people (thinking of polly carmichael). The testimonies about gids were not as bad as this but they had a flavour of it. Wasn't there evidence that a 10 Yr old had been on pb's? And the strange way consent worked between the parties & poor record keeping. By comparison webberly is much worse but the children/gender stuff doesn't seem so out of place given that context. But giving men seriously high testosterone because they ask for it, with a shopping list to choose from. It's jarring. There's no hiding that in the cloud of mystery. The comparison is medicine with norm standards. That's why we're here.

Uncooperative witnesses are not obliged to tell the police much until they are on the stand and that makes building a decent criminal case hard. With DV victims there are usually other witnesses or the victims withdrawn accusations that police can use.

And what is being proved in a criminal case is normally very different from a professional practice case (criminal cases normally require some sort of intent to do harm or to gain through dishonesty or similar, professional practice normally requires that you didn't follow guidelines/accepted or good practice regardless of intent), so most of the evidence here would probably not be as relevant to all the critical elements of a criminal prosecution.

Which isn't to say it must be impossible, but it's not straightforward.

Does anyone have an idea of what criminal law might have been broken? Maybe something related to prescribing controlled substances? Fraud? I haven't seen anything that would normally stand up as assault.

Just to echo thanks for the tribunal tweeters and the people sharing it on here. The endocrinologist’s words are like the grown ups finally arriving. It’s a relief to hear medics be aghast as we have all been on these boards.

I suppose the CPS would have to make judements about being criminally negligent in the pusuit of profit?