An unrepentant GP jailed for participating in a Just Stop Oil protest has been suspended and slammed for giving ‘no acknowledgement that what she has done was wrong’.
Although Dr Sarah Benn has only been suspended for five months, she will not be allowed to practise again until she can ‘provide evidence’ to show she understands the ‘importance of compliance with the law’.
The 57-year-old was among 51 protesters who demonstrated outside Kingsbury oil terminal, Warwickshire, in September 2022, in breach of a court injunction.
It led to her being jailed for 32 days for contempt of court by Judge Emma Kelly at Birmingham Crown Court.
The judge highlighted how protesters not only stopped tankers but also a worker asking for permission to leave the site for an urgent medical appointment – who was ‘not allowed vehicular egress’.
Dr Sarah Benn, 57, has been suspended from the medical register for five months after being jailed for 32 days after she took part in a Just Stop Oil protest
Dr Benn, from Birmingham, says she informed the General Medical Council and her employer after each arrest and argues that her actions are consistent with medical ethics
During the tribunal, Benn, from Birmingham, West Midlands, claimed her actions were part of a doctor’s ‘fundamental duty is to protect health and life’ – and said she was willing to protest again.
But Dr Faye Rolfe, for the General Medical Council, said the doctor’s conduct had ‘brought the profession into disrepute’.
Dr Rolfe said the tribunal had found that the public ‘would not condone law breaking, even if the motivation was something for which people have sympathy’.
While the GMC had ‘no clinical concerns’, punishment was needed to show her ‘repeated, planned, and deliberate’ conduct ‘was unbefitting of the profession’, she added.
The tribunal concluded: ‘She has a deep-seated belief in the veracity of evidence on the impact of climate change, that she describes as justifying her decision to repeatedly not comply with the law. This is closely linked to the risk of repetition in the future.’
The panel also found she had a ‘naivety’ about the risk of peaceful protest escalating. Benn had claimed the risk of public disorder was ‘tiny’.
Benn challenged the tribunal to strike her off. If such a decision was reached, she said, she ‘was at peace with that and had known it might happen’.
Sitting in Manchester, the Medical Practitioners’ Tribunal Service said that there ‘has been no acknowledgement from Benn that what she has done by breaking the law was wrong and no evidence that she has taken steps to remediate her actions.’
She was jailed for 31 days for contempt of court by breaching an injunction not to demonstrate outside Kingsbury oil terminal in Warwickshire in 2022
The panel concluded that ‘taking no action would be inappropriate and insufficient, and risk damaging public trust in doctors’.
The tribunal said Benn would need to ‘provide evidence of any reflections, insight and remediation in relation to the importance of compliance with the law for a doctor’ before she could be reinstated.
At the beginning of the tribunal last week, Benn had claimed it was her duty as a doctor to take part in peaceful protests against new fossil fuel projects because ‘the climate crisis is the most significant existential threat to global health we have ever faced’.
Benn, seen on a grass verge outside the terminal holding a sign which read ‘No New Oil’, had gone on protests at the terminal on April 26, May 4 and September 14 in 2022, in breach of a civil injunction.
It was the final protest, in which activists blocked the access route to and from the terminal by sitting in the road, which led to her imprisonment.
Three GPs are currently under disciplinary scrutiny for climate change protests with Dr Benn’s case being the first heard.
A spokesperson for the Doctors’ Association UK, added: ‘This is a story of a clinician being punished for raising serious concerns about dangerous inaction on the greatest threat to global health we have ever, or will ever experience.
‘The right to peaceful protest is a basic human right. It cannot and must not be taken away.
‘Given the evidence on climate change and its health impacts, we strongly believe that peaceful protest should not be viewed as condemnable professional misconduct – but as commendable public health advocacy.’
Dr Benn pictured taking part in the Just Stop Oil protest. She has been suspended as a GP for five months
A GMC spokesperson said: ‘Dr Sarah Benn was referred to a hearing at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service not for protesting about climate change, but for multiple breaches of a court order which resulted in a custodial sentence.
‘Like all citizens, doctors have the right to express their personal opinions on issues, including climate change.
‘There is nothing in our guidance to prevent them from doing so, nor from exercising their right to lobby government and to campaign, including taking part in protests.
‘However, patients and the public rightly have a high degree of trust in doctors and that trust can be eroded if doctors repeatedly fail to comply with the law.
‘Our fitness to practise investigations consider cases which are referred to us and where doctors have broken the law, not their motivations for doing so. It is not the role of regulators to determine UK law – that is a matter for parliament.’
Dr Latifa Patel, BMA representative body chair and workforce lead, said: ‘Like any citizen, doctors should adhere to the law, but many will find it very difficult to understand that their ability to practise medicine could be suspended because of peaceful actions they take in protest of the climate crisis.
‘Whilst the GMC has a duty to refer doctors to a medical tribunal when they receive a custodial sentence, in some cases, such as this one, the doctor’s actions will have no bearing on their ability to practise medicine and will not pose a risk to patients, past or future.
‘This ruling sends a worrying message to other doctors about the regulation of matters not directly related to patient care or their clinical skills, and raises serious questions about the rules behind the handling of such cases.
‘We need urgent consideration on the rules as to why a doctor has been suspended for the punishment they already received for taking part in a legitimately peaceful protest, especially as the climate crisis is also a health crisis and as such doctors are understandably concerned.
‘Dr Benn’s actions and her resulting custodial sentence posed no threat to patients, but her suspension implies they do. It is now time for the GMC and the medical profession to review the basis on which Dr Benn found herself in front of a medical tribunal.’