Arunoday v General Medical Council: High Court dismisses appeal against erasure on findings of fact

An appeal mounted almost entirely against a tribunal's assessment of two competing accounts has failed, with the Administrative Court holding that a forensic re-examination of the evidence on appeal amounts to little more than a request for a second opinion.

In Arunoday v General Medical Council [2026] EWHC 1746 (Admin), handed down on 10 July 2026, Mr Justice Poole dismissed an appeal under section 40 of the Medical Act 1983 against a Medical Practitioners Tribunal determination that a consultant neonatologist's fitness to practise was impaired and that his name be erased from the register.

The tribunal found proved allegations of inappropriate sexualised messaging, two counts of rape and unwanted sexual conduct towards a colleague, referred to as Ms A. It found that the conduct constituted sexual harassment under section 26(2) of the Equality Act 2010 and was an abuse of the appellant's seniority. One allegation was found not proved and two were admitted.

A case about credibility

No procedural error and no material error of law was alleged. The appellant's case was that no reasonable tribunal could have made the findings it did on the evidence available.

That evidence was limited. There were no independent witnesses to any of the conduct, no forensic or medical evidence, and the messaging said to be sexualised was conducted on a platform where messages disappear and was not before the tribunal. Much of the physical conduct was not in dispute. The issue was consent, and whether the appellant reasonably believed in it.

Poole J observed that the seriousness of the allegations did not preclude findings resting overwhelmingly on one witness's testimony, provided the evidence was sufficiently cogent. Citing Jones v Birmingham City Council [2023] UKSC 27, inherent improbability is a relevant factor, but seriousness of allegation does not of itself demand more cogent evidence under the civil standard. The tribunal had directed itself accordingly, had cautioned itself against assumptions about typical responses to rape, had given a good character direction, and had reminded itself, by reference to the Equal Treatment Bench Book, that English was not the appellant's first language.

The limits of re-hearing

Although a section 40 appeal proceeds by way of re-hearing under CPR PD52D, Poole J emphasised that this is not a fresh trial. Applying Dutta, Yassin and Volpi v Volpi [2022] EWCA Civ 464, the question is whether the decision is one no reasonable tribunal could have reached. A tribunal is assumed to have considered the whole of the evidence, and the omission of any particular item from its reasons does not establish otherwise.

Both central witnesses were cross-examined at length, the complainant over two days. The tribunal found her consistent on the core allegations, and found the appellant evasive under scrutiny with an account that had shifted over time. That advantage, Poole J held, was decisive: findings of primary fact founded on credibility are virtually unassailable, as Southall establishes.

Detailed analysis of the evidence on appeal, he noted, simply invites a re-run of the tribunal's exercise. Having conducted that scrutiny, he found it reinforced rather than undermined the conclusions reached.

Loose language, sound reasoning

One criticism landed, but not fatally. The tribunal had described the complainant's earlier reports to colleagues as "corroboratory". Those witnesses could speak only to previous consistent statements. Poole J accepted the term had been used loosely, but the meaning was clear enough: the earlier complaints, and the distress others observed, were inconsistent with the appellant's case that the exchanges were reciprocal and enjoyed by both.

Submissions that the complainant would have told her family about the messaging, or would not have remained in contact afterwards, strayed into the stereotypical assumptions the tribunal had rightly been directed to avoid.

Another tribunal might have given fuller reasons. These were sufficient.