London: A leading UK psychiatrist faces extraordinary claims he deliberately misdiagnosed parents with mental disorders — decisions which meant their children were taken away from them.
Dr George Hibbert faces being struck off over his conclusions that hundreds had "personality disorders" after assessing them at his private family centre.
He was paid hundreds of thousands of pounds by social services for the reports which tore children from their parents — many of them young mothers.
He is now being investigated over shocking suggestions he distorted the assessments to fit the view of social services.
In one case, he is alleged to have wrongly diagnosed a caring new mother — named only as Miss A — with bipolar disorder because her local authority wanted the baby adopted.
After being confronted with this allegation, Dr Hibbert offered to surrender his licence to practise as a doctor rather than face a General Medical Council inquiry.
But his request has been rejected by the GMC which says there are still "unresolved concerns regarding his fitness to practise". He will now face a full hearing. On Friday John Hemming MP, who has raised concerns about Dr Hibbert in Parliament, described the claims as shocking.
The Liberal Democrat MP — alerted by a whistle-blower — said he had since spoken to "three or four" other families who said the same had happened to them.
He has written to Justice Secretary Ken Clarke demanding a full parliamentary inquiry.
Number of complaints
Hemming said: "He is someone about whom a number of people have complained. I am told that at least one person has refused to work for him because of what she saw as his unethical provision of reports to suit the demands of local authorities.
"Much of the decision making in care proceedings rests on reports from experts such as Dr Hibbert," he told Parliament.
He added that supposedly independent experts such as Dr Hibbert, 59, were often little more than "the hired gun of the local authority".
The lack of transparency over such experts was leading to "thousands of miscarriages of justice in care proceedings".
Earlier this week, a study for the Family Justice Council revealed how life-changing decisions about the care of children are routinely being made on the basis of flawed evidence. A fifth of experts who advise the family courts are unqualified.
Dr Hibbert charged local authorities £6,000 (Dh35,000) a week for every family in his care and £210 an hour just to read documents such as medical records.
By 2007 his company, Assessment in Care, was making a profit of around £460,000 a year from his lucrative arrangement with social services.
A former honorary lecturer at Oxford University, who has previously advised the government on care assessments, Dr Hibbert left the NHS to set up his private assessment centre in 2000.
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