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General Medical Council looks into findings which were criticised by other pathologists at Ian Tomlinson inquest The General Medical Council is investigating the suspended pathologist Dr Freddy Patel for the way he conducted a postmortem examination on Ian Tomlinson. Patel carried out the first autopsy on the body, suggesting that the newspaper seller had died of a heart attack during the G20 demonstrations in London on 1 April 2009. His findings were criticised by three other pathologists who subsequently conducted examinations of Tomlinson and concluded that the 47-year-old father of nine had died from internal bleeding. An inquest jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing on Tuesday after seeing a video showing a police officer pushing Tomlinson who fell forward on to the pavement in the City of London. It is understood that the GMC has begun its inquiries into Patel’s performance during his controversial autopsy. The disciplinary panel has also been approached by other families who are pressing for inquiries into Patel’s role as a pathologist in other deaths. The families of those affected have begun banding together to raise concerns about the way postmortems have been conducted. Among those who have been in correspondence with the GMC are the relatives of Richard Chang, who died in 2004 after a fall inside the atrium of a London finance office. Patel conducted the postmortem examination. The courtroom-style hearings at the GMC’s high-rise offices on London’s Euston Road must, by now, be a painfully familiar ritual to Patel: the 63-year-old pathologist has been disciplined three times in the past decade and is serving his second term of suspension from the profession. At the end of the last examination, counsel for the GMC urged that he be struck off the medical register. Patel has had a chequered career. In 2002, he was found to have breached patient confidentiality by telling journalists that Roger Sylvester, a 30-year-old who died after being restrained by police, had been taking drugs. The GMC issued him with a reprimand. Last summer, Patel appeared before a fitness-to-practice panel to face charges that four of his postmortems were “not of a standard expected of a Home Office-registered forensic pathologist” and that one case “was liable to bring the profession into disrepute”. One of his postmortems was on a five-year-old girl who had been admitted to hospital after her parents claimed she had suffered a serious fall. Patel failed to spot signs of abuse and was suspended from practice for three months. The publicity generated by the Tomlinson case has stirred up several allegations against Patel. Between December last year and March this year, Patel was called by the GMC to answer fresh allegations of incompetence and dishonesty. He was found to have falsified his CV and to have conducted a botched autopsy on the body of 31-year-old sex worker Sally White, who was the first victim of the “Camden Ripper” Anthony Hardy. Patel suggested she had died from a heart attack during consensual sex despite evidence of blood-stained clothing and bedding. His findings discouraged police from launching a murder investigation. Hardy went on to murder two more women. In March, the GMC suspended Patel for a further four months. On Patel’s status, a spokeswoman said: “The GMC argued very strongly for erasure [striking off the register] but we have independent panels and they went with suspension. It’s frustrating for the GMC.” The GMC says it cannot confirm whether it is investigating the Chang family’s complaint. Chang, 48, was found dead on 13 July 2004 on the ground floor of Abbey National’s office. He was a risk analyst and had been working on corporate governance. He had fallen from a fifth-floor internal balcony shortly after being interviewed by a private investigation company about accusations of sending malicious, anonymous documents to the Financial Services Authority. The inquest returned a verdict of suicide. His family has never accepted the official version of events and has challenged the thoroughness of the postmortem conducted by Patel, questioning whether he examined certain marks on the body. Lawyers for Patel were passed the complaints from the Chang family but did not respond. Dr Freddy Patel Ian Tomlinson Owen Bowcott Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk