The core of the case is the staff's testimony to my behaviour. There are seven of them (of the nine who were working at the time that I was), and each one of them lies through their teeth. Their testimony derives from the group complaint that they wrote with another dentist in the practice (who is barely mentioned). This complaint had been written after I had alleged that one of them was illicitly transferring patients off my list, and after my behavior had been deteriorating for two or three weeks. Although they formed a group and wrote down their thoughts together, there is no evidence for me or anyone else to say that this was an example of 'group think'. They are not here by choice. Yet again I must mention the PCT's view, which was that the staff's behaviour towards me was pure victimisation, and here they are again.
The main lie that they told was this business with the wallets. Although their original complaint had been a single line alleging that 'I had been known to do this', this has mushroomed into seven people seeing me do it. Like virtually all of the allegations, there are no times, dates, locations nor the identity of one single patient affected by this crass behaviour. Although the Committee is most interested in identifying this information in respect of other allegations, they do not ask a single probing question about this. There are no records of verbal comments from patients, and certainly no complaint in writing objecting to this behaviour which, according to the testimony, must have been widespread and commonplace. I hear that I asked unemployed patients to open their wallets, which is insane but passes unquestioned, but the allegation that I asked people with darker skin than me to do this has disappeared. Like all of the behavioural allegations, this allegation is so vague that it is impossible to disprove- the terms 'deafening silence' (from my employer and 3,000 patients) and 'silent majority' come to mind. Quite obviously the patients must have been aware of this yet there was never at any point a conversation with me that I had been observed doing this. Clearly, that something cannot be disproved yet apparently can be proved to a civil standard poses no ethical quandary for those lawyers who have framed these charges.
The staff finish and it is pretty damning. It seems to me that asking the staff to describe in detail one single incident of wallet-opening would have exposed them as liars (because it never happened) but my brief did not ask.
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