Though the ruling in respect of Witness D is less damning than Witness E, the fact remains Witness D was not an impressive witness either. Consider that these rulings were made without Harrop’s legal team having to cross-examine any of the witnesses, it becomes apparent that the GMC case on the intimidation issue was fundamentally week.
I disagree. The witnesses weren't on trial. I think the failure to prove certain points might have something to do with the combative nature of twitter discourse and lots of other irrelevant detail in the history with certain witnesses.
But the nature of a twitter battle is that it is public. And regardless of whatever any of the witnesses may or may not have done, a GMC registered doctor (who made a big deal about being a GMC registered doctor) was having a nasty bunfight in public, despite having been told off by numerous superiors who he ignored, because he thought he was right.
Massive questions about self-control and personal judgment. It doesn't matter who the argument was with, and what any of those people are like.
And regardless of whether every single complaint made was ill-founded, baseless or exaggerated, Harrop's online behaviour (which is something that doesn't form part of his work but is rather an ill-advised, extremely public hobby) led to a flurry of complaints.
There's little to suggest his behaviour in future will be less likely to result in complaints from the public, he has shown poor judgement re the Vice article and the weirdly positioned pin badges, and his defence was at least partially "she made me do it and I can't help myself".