'I just wanted my voice to be heard at doctor's tribunal'

THE young disabled woman at the centre of a medical disciplinary case that saw a doctor suspended has criticised the way the tribunal was conducted, and has called for greater education in schools around the two legal ages of consent in the UK.

- TRISTAN CORK

The woman, known as 'Patient A' claimed she was 'denied a voice' in the tribunal which saw a former Bristol University trainee doctor suspended for a year after admitting an inappropriate relationship with the woman when she was aged between 16 and 18.

Dr Cian Hughes, who is now a leading figure in the use of Al in the field of medicine and works for Google, was suspended for a year rather than struck off by a Medical Practitioners' Tribunal last month.

Dr Hughes met Patient A when he was a 23-year-old student doctor at the University of Bristol and she was a vulnerable 13-year-old patient at Bristol Children's Hospital in 2011.

Their relationship evolved when she was 16, and into a sexual one when she was 17, the tribunal was told. But after the tribunal decided not to strike Dr Hughes from the medical register permanently, and explained their reasons why, Patient A said her experience of the tribunal process was particularly poor, and she had not been given a voice during the proceedings.

Now aged 28, Patient A said she had wanted to give evidence in person to the tribunal, which held its initial hearing into the case in January this year. But with just weeks to go before the hearing date, he admitted to some of the allegations against him.