The High Court upheld a decision refusing to restore the professional registration of a doctor who has been deemed unfit to practise medicine in Ireland and the UK.
Mr Justice Micheál O’Higgins said the Irish Medical Council, in deciding to reject Michael John Sheill’s registration application, considered findings made by its British counterpart and carried out its own assessment.
Members of a medical council review panel were entitled to have “serious concerns” about Mr Sheill’s “lack of insight” into the circumstances that led to him being struck off the British register in 2007, the judge said.
In 2022, the Irish panel questioned the former GP about services he was continuing to provide at a cosmetic clinic in England, and Mr Sheill said these included “minor surgery” and botox administration, the judge said.
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He also answered questions the panel put to him about a Channel 4 news report from 2012 that alleged he was practising under the name “Dr Michael Schiel” and about a 2017 BBC broadcast on botox treatments he was allegedly carrying out, said the judge.
Mr Justice O’Higgins found that the Irish Medical Council’s assessment of Mr Sheill’s application was fair. The issues suggesting his unfitness to practise “went beyond the findings of misconduct” by the British oversight body, the judge said, adding that Mr Sheill’s answers to the panel’s questions “were, to put it mildly, concerning”.
In striking Mr Sheill off in 2007, Britain’s General Medical Council accepted 43 allegations of misconduct against him.
Among the proven claims was that his cosmetic and weight loss clinics were not registered, that he breached subsequent conditions imposed by the British council, and that he adopted a cavalier approach to prescribing medicines. The council also made findings that he was rude, abusive and unprofessional towards some patients, the judge said.
He had been registered as a doctor in Ireland in 1987 and 1988 and applied in 2017 to have his name restored. The Irish Medical Council’s eventual refusal in April 2023 came after it found he was unfit to practise medicine and had shown himself not to be amenable to regulation.
He appealed against this decision to the High Court, claiming, among other things, that he was being discriminated against because of his sexual orientation.
In his newly-published judgment on the appeal, Mr Justice O’Higgins said Mr Sheill has dedicated a considerable part of the last two decades challenging the decisions of the UK and Irish medical councils.
Among Mr Sheill’s other complaints was that the Irish Medical Council was effectively enforcing a foreign judgment and that it held its hearings on his application in private, which he claimed breached the principle of open justice.
The Medical Council, represented by Ronan Kennedy SC and Caoimhe Daly, said his name was withdrawn from the register in 1988 following an application for voluntary withdrawal. Mr Sheill submitted that the signatures on the withdrawal documents were not his and the withdrawal application was effectively a forgery.
Ruling, Mr Justice O’Higgins said there was “ample evidence” before the Irish Medical Council to allow it to conclude as it did. He said the UK strike-off was “a plainly relevant matter”, and the Irish council gave considered reasons for its decisions.
He was not persuaded that there was any basis for setting aside the Irish Medical Council’s decision to refuse registration.
