Dr Humayun Iqbal touched the breast of two female colleagues and tried to kiss one of them before making dishonest statements during the hospital’s investigation
A doctor who was struck off after sexually assaulting two junior colleagues has applied to practise again.
Dr Humayun Iqbal touched the breasts of two female members of staff while working at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle. He also tried to kiss one of the colleagues and attempted to force his hand down her blouse. The doctor then made dishonest statements during the hospital’s investigation.
He said a male staff member had told him about the allegation made by one of the colleagues and the matter would be going no further. He also said there were complaints from nursing staff about the woman’s performance and she had made racist comments to him.
A misconduct panel in 2013 found that he had sexually assaulted the two members of staff, acted dishonestly on at least three occasions and persisted in impugning the reputation of one of the women in November and December of 2009, Chronicle Live reports.
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They said Mr Iqbal’s behaviour amounted to serious misconduct and led to a finding of impaired fitness to practise. They made the decision to erase his name from the medical register.
The former doctor has since worked as a Cardiothoracic surgeon at a private practice in Pakistan and a Consultant in Cardiac Surgery at a hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
In 2024, he applied to restore his name to the medical register in the UK, operated by the General Medical Council. He stated that there was no evidence to support the allegations against him, other than the two complainants themselves.
He said: “I believed that Britain was a fair and just society and system, and that I deserved much better. How can a trial be fair without conducting an investigation?”
The former doctor explained that in 2010, as a whistle-blower, he was pursuing a case of ‘forced illegal working hours’ at the hospital on behalf of junior doctors. He said that, having raised those concerns, the hospital initiated internal proceedings against him relating to allegations of sexual harassment.
He criticised the decisions of the hospital and suggested that it had either destroyed – or let go to waste – critical evidence such as CCTV footage. He said this was ‘simply a case of lack of investigation’ as well as a case of ‘misreading and misleading’ evidence.
Mr Iqbal said that, in hindsight, his only mistake was to take up issues on behalf of junior colleagues and become a whistle-blower. He said that if it had not been for the alleged incident and subsequent proceedings, he would have become a Consultant Cardio-thoracic Surgeon in the UK in 2015.
He said he did not consider that the 2013 Panel made the right decision and he strenuously denied any sexual misconduct. He also denied that he had been dishonest, although he accepted that his comment about one of the female colleague’s making a racist remark was incorrect.
During the restoration hearing, which was held last month, the GMC Representative said Mr Iqbal has not accepted the findings of the 2013 Panel. She said that, instead of acknowledging that he should not have sexually assaulted his colleagues or been dishonest, he had focussed on his relationships with colleagues who may have had motives to make false allegations.
She invited the Tribunal to refuse Mr Iqbal’s application for restoration to the medical register.
The Tribunal was not satisfied that Mr Iqbal had demonstrated sufficient insight into the impact of the proven facts of his sexual misconduct and dishonesty or taken sufficient steps towards remediation in respect of the findings of the 2013 Panel. They said that, even though the risk of repetition was low, a risk still remained.
The Tribunal felt that Mr Iqbal’s insight was far from fully formed and he still appeared to harbour resentment about the way that he had been treated by the Hospital and the GMC. They said his focus was to a large extent on his own perceptions of injustice, rather than on remediation and actively addressing the findings of the 2013 Panel.
The tribunal refused his application to be restored to the medical register. They said: “Having carefully considered the evidence and specific circumstances of this case, the Tribunal was not satisfied that Mr Iqbal is fit to return to unrestricted practise.”
