Deputy Gavin St Pier will find out this week if he will be suspended from the States for 25 days.
The proposed punishment is in response to him breaching the States’ Members Code of Conduct amid a long running dispute with a doctor.
He is expected to defend himself against the potential sanction when the States debate it in their meeting starting on Wednesday.
The Medical Specialist Group and the British Medical Association have both issued statements encouraging deputies to vote in favour of the suspension.
Deputy St Pier has cautioned his colleagues against suspending him warning it would set a dangerous precedence.
Background
The dispute between Deputy Gavin St Pier and Dr Sandie Bohin is believed to have been running for more than five years, starting when one of his children was under Dr Bohin’s care.
It all came out in public when Deputy St Pier used parliamentary privilege to name Dr Bohin during a States debate in April 2022, as he attempted to get other politicians to support a motion to debate an annual document detailing the regulation of doctors, known as the Responsible Officer report, based on personally held concerns with the safeguarding of children.
During that States meeting he cited a personal example in which a complaint his family had filed against the Medical Specialist Group had “triggered a bizarre and Kafkaesque safeguarding investigation, which our GP described at the time as the ‘weaponisation’ of the safeguarding service”.
He argued that “there have been egregious failings in our safeguarding culture and processes and their weaponisation has not only wasted precious and limited resources, it has also prevented children and families from being kept safe”.
Following the April 2022 debate, three Code of Conduct complaints were made against Deputy St Pier – by Dr Bohin, the Medical Specialist Group, and the British Medical Association.
Deputy St Pier was found guilty of breaching the States Members’ Code of Conduct but was cleared of abusing parliamentary privilege.
Other families
Since Deputy St Pier went public with his own family’s experiences, he has said multiple other families and medical professionals have contacted him to share their own concerns.
This has included concerns around Dr Bohin in particular and safeguarding processes in the island more widely, he has said.
Deputy St Pier has previously confirmed that he had been contacted by three other families prior to making his speech in April 2022.
He recently said that 23 families and practitioners have contacted him since then, bringing the total to 27.
He said the most recent family approached him with their concerns in September this year.
While none of the other families or practitioners have yet identified themselves publicly, some of them are known to Express and are in contact with our news desk.
The current complaint
The latest Code of Conduct complaint against Deputy St Pier was lodged in January this year, following a conversation he had with a national newspaper journalist which was connected to the past events involving his family and others.
Deputy St Pier said that he confirmed to the Guardian’s reporter how many complaints he was aware of that had been made against Dr Bohin. When the reporter contacted Dr Bohin, she made a Code of Conduct complaint against Deputy St Pier.
She said Deputy St Pier had breached five sections of the States’ Members’ Code of Conduct in that interview, and the Standards’ Commissioner agreed, suggesting a 30-day suspension as punishment.
The deputy appealed and partially won with the recommended suspension reduced to 25 days.
Dr Bohin
Dr Sandie Bohin has been employed by the Medical Specialist Group in Guernsey since 2009.
Before that she had worked at University Hospitals Leicester where she was Head of Neonatology.
Dr Bohin is a Fellow of the Royal College of Paediatricians and a member of the Neonatal Society and the British Association of Perinatal Medicine. She is also employed as an expert witness in medico-legal work for the UK National Crime Agency and for HM Coroner in the UK.
She recently announced her retirement citing the impact of her dispute with Deputy St Pier and criticism of her involvement in the Lucy Letby murder trial.
“As an expert witness in a high-profile case such as Lucy Letby’s you expect scrutiny and challenge,” she said. “I am comfortable with the scrutiny that the role attracts. It is the unrelenting personal vilification and harassment from within the island that has caused me and my family stress and upset. This ultimately led to my decision to retire from my post earlier than I had planned.”
The MSG
Dr Bohin’s employers and colleagues at the MSG are standing by her – with the Group’s Chair calling on the States to uphold the Standards Commissioner’s finding.
Dr Steve Evans has urged deputies to respect the independent Commissioner for Standards’ conclusion that Deputy St Pier breached six sections of the Code of Conduct, and to support the Appeals Commissioner’s recommendation of a 25-day suspension.
“We sincerely hope this will finally bring an end to the long and unfair campaign waged against Dr Bohin – a campaign that has caused deep harm to her, to our paediatric service, to public trust in healthcare and safeguarding, and ultimately to Guernsey’s reputation,” he said.
“The key finding by the Commissioner is that Deputy St Pier confirmed ‘confidential and seriously inaccurate and misleading information’ in a call with a Guardian journalist.
“In doing so, the Commissioner says, he not only showed ‘an intention to harm Dr Bohin’s reputation’, but also ‘risked misleading the public and undermining trust in both the complaints processes and the institutions of public accountability’.”
Dr Evans said the MSG is standing by the Commissioner for Standards’ findings.
In her report, Dr Melissa McCullough wrote: “These are extremely serious and unfounded allegations. Independent reviews … have consistently found no wrongdoing related to Dr Bohin’s clinical judgement or her actions.”
Additional complaints
While Deputy St Pier has said that 27 families and practitioners have approached him with concerns over the past three or more years, the MSG said its data – and that held by HSC – does not back that up.
“…according to official HSC and MSG data, over the past four years only eight complaints concerning Dr Bohin were made. None were upheld, and none involved safeguarding issues,” said the MSG in a statement to the media last week.
Dr Evans continued: “We are unaware of the additional complaints made directly to Deputy St Pier. We urge anyone with concerns to make a complaint so that we can investigate fully and fairly. That is the only way that we can help patients and their families, it’s the only way we can learn and improve, and it’s the only way to ensure that every voice is heard through the proper channels.”
MSG complaint to HSC
In March this year the MSG itself raised a complaint about Deputy St Pier, this time with the Health and Social Care Committee.
The MSG’s Chair said he and the Group are concerned about the way Deputy St Pier has handled the concerns of people who have contacted him directly about matters concerning health professionals.
“We were concerned that he was not following the official joint HSC and MSG complaints policy, which states that if a service user contacts a Deputy, requesting that they undertake an advocacy role on their behalf, the complaint should be managed under the policy so that it can be fully and fairly investigated,” said Dr Evans.
“It is not enough to say that you have ‘signposted’ the procedure to a complainant,” he added.
“We were informed in late June that Jane St Pier (Deputy St Pier’s wife) had admitted to being the source of the information given to the Guardian, but this was not relevant to our complaint, so we did not withdraw it.”
A “wave of false or misleading allegations“
The MSG and Dr Bohin have consistently denied that complaints made against the paediatrician have been upheld.
In its statement, issued last week, the MSG said that each time Deputy St Pier highlights the matter there are fresh “false or misleading allegations”.
Deputy St Pier was given a formal reprimand for his previous Code of Conduct breach last year, but Dr Evans said he hasn’t learned anything from it.
“We had hoped that the formal reprimand would be the end of the matter, but it was not. First there was the Guardian letter in November containing multiple untrue allegations.
“On 8 January Sir David Davis MP said in the House of Commons that eight families had complained to the GMC about Dr Bohin, something she remains unaware of. In May she received another long letter from the Guardian, repeating many of the original allegations. In July she was contacted by the UK news website UnHerd with similar allegations. In September the Telegraph got in touch to say they had been contacted by several Guernsey families with concerns.
“The wording and content of each of these approaches clearly shows a consistent, single source from an individual or group of individuals who have embarked on a campaign to cause reputational damage and personal attacks without factually correct and corroborated evidence.”
This week
The States are due to debate the recommended 25-day suspension this week.
The States meeting starts on Wednesday morning with deputies expected to start debating the proposed suspension later that day.
If the States votes in favour of Deputy St Pier being suspended he will not be allowed to do any States work at all for 25-days.
He would have to leave the States Chambers immediately and will not be allowed back until shortly before Christmas. That would mean he would be absent for the meeting scheduled to start on 17 December.
The next States meeting then starts on 28 January but Deputy St Pier will be allowed to continue his political work immediately once the 25-day suspension period ends.
More to come…
The British Medical Association has also urged States members to vote in favour of suspending Deputy St Pier. Read that statement in full tomorrow.