{"id":607081,"date":"2026-05-27T18:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T18:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/607081\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T18:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T18:38:11","slug":"high-court-upholds-decision-not-to-strike-off-doctor-after-relationship-with-teen-patient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/607081\/","title":{"rendered":"High Court upholds decision not to strike off doctor after relationship with teen patient"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The High Court decision to dismiss the appeal and not erase Dr Hughes is deeply disappointing” – Patient A\"bristolpost\"<\/p>\n

16:00, 27 May 2026<\/p>\n

\"Dr<\/p>\n

Dr Cian Hughes and the girl known as ‘Patient A’. Dr Hughes was suspended by a Medical Practitioners Tribunal for a year for an inappropriate relationship with Patient A, who he met when she was a 13-year-old patient at Bristol’s Children’s Hospital(Image: Bristol Post submitted)<\/p>\n

A woman who was groomed as a teenager into starting a sexual relationship<\/a> with a doctor – who met her when she was a patient at Bristol\u2019s Children\u2019s Hospital – has said a High Court decision not to strike him off the register was \u2018deeply disappointing\u2019.<\/p>\n

Dr Cian Hughes was only suspended as a doctor for a year<\/a> by a medical tribunal panel last year, after admitting he had committed misconduct by his relationship with the teenager, known as Patient A. They first met when she was just 13 and a patient at Bristol Children\u2019s Hospital.<\/p>\n

The decision not to strike him off was seen as so lenient by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care that they took both the General Medical Council and Hughes to the High Court, in a bid to overturn the sentence and have the Irish doctor \u2018erased’ from the medical register.<\/p>\n

The woman, who is now in her late twenties and has been known throughout the legal process as Patient A, said the decision by High Court judge Mr Justice Murray to uphold the decision by a medical tribunal panel to only suspend Hughes for a year, despite admitting that he had committed misconduct, showed that the guidelines for tribunals to sanction doctors had not kept pace with GMC zero-tolerance policies for medical staff who have relationships with patients.<\/p>\n

Last year, a tribunal heard how Dr Hughes was a student doctor involved in the care of Patient A, who was just 13, at the Children\u2019s Hospital in Bristol back in 2011. The pair developed a friendship which evolved into a relationship when Patient A was 16 and 17, and then a sexual one as soon as she turned 18.<\/p>\n

Police investigated but decided not to charge Hughes, and handed over their files to the GMC, which eventually instigated disciplinary proceedings against him.<\/p>\n

By that point, Dr Hughes was working as one of the leading medical professionals developing Google medical arm of artificial intelligence in Dublin. But after his licence was suspended for a year, in October last year he took up a new role as Chief Scientific Officer at Counsel Health, an online AI medical service.<\/p>\n

David Hopkins, on behalf of the Professional Standards Authority, told the High Court the tribunal had been wrong to conclude that Hughes had not \u2018exploited Patient A\u2019s vulnerability\u2019, and therefore should have erased him from the GMC doctors\u2019 record.<\/p>\n

\"Dr<\/p>\n

Dr Cian Hughes and the girl known as ‘Patient A’. Dr Hughes was suspended by a Medical Practitioners Tribunal for a year for an inappropriate relationship with Patient A, who he met when she was a 13-year-old patient at Bristol’s Children’s Hospital(Image: Bristol Post submitted)<\/p>\n

But, in dismissing the Professional Standards Authority\u2019s appeal, Mr Justice Murray said the tribunal had been acting within the guidelines for sanctions of a doctor in what was a \u2018complicated\u2019 and \u2018nuanced\u2019 case.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a case involving a vulnerable patient, (the guidelines state) \u2018erasure \u2026 is likely to be appropriate\u2019,\u201d the judge said. \u201cThis clearly leaves room for there to be cases involving a vulnerable patient where erasure is not appropriate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn any event, the Tribunal acknowledged that this is a case that came close to requiring erasure, despite the lack of a finding of predatory behaviour and despite the mitigating factors,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am unpersuaded that the Tribunal reached the wrong conclusion on the question of whether Dr Hughes had exploited Patient A\u2019s vulnerability and for that reason was wrong to impose the sanction of suspension for 12 months rather than the sanction of erasure,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n

Patient A, who was denied the opportunity to give evidence directly to the tribunal, despite wanting to<\/a>, said the latest High Court decision in the case was \u2018tone deaf and out of step with wider healthcare\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe High Court decision to dismiss the PSA appeal and not erase Dr Hughes is deeply disappointing,\u201d she told Bristol Live.<\/p>\n

\u201cParticularly in the context of the GMC\u2019s zero tolerance policy on sexual misconduct, especially with children. Mr Justice Murray\u2019s decision that a 12 month suspension wasn\u2019t lenient is partly because the MPTS sanctions guidance doesn\u2019t mandate erasure for sexual misconduct with minors, despite recognising they are inherently vulnerable due to age.<\/p>\n

Content cannot be displayed without consent<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the victim in this case, the judgement feels rather tone deaf and out of step with wider healthcare, justice and government policies and approaches to VAWG. Nevertheless, this does not take away the judgement by the tribunal and the High Court that Dr Hughes\u2019 conduct towards me was wrong for many reasons,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite repeated failings of the system, I\u2019m still hopeful that the appropriate sanction to protect the public and the reputation of the profession, of erasure, will be given by the panel at the MPTS review hearing on June 18,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“The High Court decision to dismiss the appeal and not erase Dr Hughes is deeply disappointing” – Patient…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[11048,1343,844,102,2960,8934,56,54,55,13639],"class_list":["post-607081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-bristol-live","tag-courts","tag-google","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-premium","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-university-hospitals-bristol-nhs-foundation-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}