Who am I? 

I have been a full time GP for 40 years, with and was the lead GP for Dorset fighting against fund holding and introducing the concept of Commissioning Groups. I also was the GP research lead for E Dorset and Prescribing lead as well as being a GP trainer and appraiser. My masters degree was on the psychology of decision making.

Background to my case

My life came crashing down when I received unsafe financial advice about my NHS pension, which lost me some £250,000. This was the first year of the pension taxation increases that have caused many senior doctors with large pension savings to retire early as they would effectively be working for no money otherwise. This is now causing a staffing problem for the NHS.

Amazingly this situation was not covered by the Ombudsman and I would have needed to take the financial advisor to court to resolve it. The cost of doing this would have been £150,000 and take 6 years I was told.

As a result of this I felt I had failed my family and felt suicidal. I pursued many treatments, but none helped. Then in 2017 I was hit by a car when cycling, had a serious head injury, with brain scan changes and became unable to work or even walk.

After discussing the situation with my doctor and Samaritans it was felt it may be helpful to try and speak to the financial advisor who had lost my pension monies, rather than go to court over the matter.

I tried to make an appointment to speak to him, but was unsuccessful so I phoned his office and was put through to him for about 5 seconds, but he hung up the phone as soon as I spoke my name.

I am also an autistic computer nerd and was researching the use of computer artificial intelligence in suicide prevention with teams in USA and Canada and so was experimenting with this, for which I was arrested when caught in a scam fake website trap. I was found unanimously not guilty for this charge and I believe it was a malicious charge by the police to try and fund their new cybercrime unit

Summary of my case

The CPS used the Malicious communication act 1988 to convict me for Implied Threat of suicide. This does not seem at all in the spirit of what this act was intended for as there was no threat to the person I spoke to. There has never been another case of conviction for someone requesting help when truly suicidal and following medical advice from other parties

My barrister has submitted an appeal as it does not seem appropriate to prosecute when a person is truly seeking help and has no malicious intent.

Malicious communication should not be charged against a person seeking help for severe medical problems with no malicious intent.

What is the next step in the case? 

Permission to appeal takes 5 months and then the hearing takes another 2 years!

How much we are raising and why? 

So far I have spent £60,000 on legal fees. I would like publicity and support for this case and any financial help

Thank you for your help