Dear Dr Halpin
Thank you for your emails of 13 May and following letter that we received on 16 May 2012.
The role of the GMC is to license doctors to practise in the UK and maintain the register of qualified medical practitioners. If a doctor’s fitness to practise is found to be impaired we can take action through our procedures to either restrict or remove their registration.
Read more: Reply: Concerns re evidence of Professor Shepherd
General Medical Council
3 Hardman Street,
Manchester
M3 3AW
12 May 2012
My ref: Dr Richard Shepherd BSc MB BS FRCPath FFFLM Consultant forensic pathologist: The unnatural death of Dr David Kelly 17/18 July 2003
Dear GMC,
Dr Richard Shepherd provided a report dated 16 March 2011 at the request of the Attorney General, (AG) Mr Dominic Grieve QC.
http://www.attorneygeneral.gov.uk/Publications/Documents/Forensic%20medical%20report%20by%20Dr%20Shepherd%2016%20March%202011.pdf
The purpose of this supposedly independent report was to examine the criticisms made by a group, of which I am but one member, to do with the performance of Dr Nicholas Hunt, forensic pathologist, in the examination of the unnatural death of Dr David Kelly MSc CMG. The AG had received a Memorial in October 2010, and an Addendum in February 2011 from our solicitors, Leigh Day & Co. We were pleading for the AG to facilitate an inquest, there having been no inquest, by approaching the High Court using S:13 of the 1988 Coroner's Act. Dr Shepherd's report also dealt with other complaints from outside our group.
The unnatural death of Dr David Kelly: For the attention of the Attorney General
Dear Mr McGinty,
I am writing to the Attorney General as an individual whilst Ms Frances Swaine of Leigh Day & Co assembles the many omissions, contradictions, untruths etc that are of a general nature, rather than being specifically medical or forensic. Those have been dealt with in large part by the memorial.
Read more: The unnatural death of Dr David Kelly: For the attention of the Attorney General
I write these two pages in case my points might help towards a judicial review of Mr Grieve's negative response to our plea for an inquest. These points do, I think, concern the process in his response rather than his rationale.
The death of Dr Kelly, either by his own hand or by another's, was all about the Iraq war. That cannot be disputed. I note:-