A Case of Injustice in the UK: Dr. Patrick Hickey

Dr. Patrick Hickey: The Search For Justice

Hickey-Rose Letter

Documents From the Various Hickey Cases

Jon Gettman's Petition To Rescheule Marijuana

Petition for Review of an Order of the Drug Enforcement Administration

Background

This case demonstrates how serious injustices can occur within generally just societies and within generally just systems within those societies. I believe that the United Kingdom has produced one of the most decent and civilized societies the world has ever seen. I especially applaud the approach it has usually taken to deal with drug addicts and with those doctors who treat them. 

The assault on Dr Patrick Hickey, however, runs contrary to that generally favorable situation. Moreover, it is a signal, combined with too many other signals, suggesting that the entire structure of the enlightened British System of drug control and treatment may be developing critical weaknesses in its very foundation.

I have not yet come up with a complete plan for reporting on the Hickey case on this site. In part this is due to the fact that I am still involved as an expert witness at the request of Dr. Hickey’s solicitor. In part, to the fact that the bulk of material that I have on the case is so huge. It fills boxes and file drawers in my office. Yet, the very bulk of the material is an advantage because it will allow researchers and reformers to obtain a detailed view into the belly of the beast of injustice in this vital matter.

For now, I will put up a number of selected items about the case that will help viewers understand it. Most will be relatively short – that is short within the purview of the case - which involved many very long documents. I may also put up longer documents on the case that will allow those most interested to download them. 

In addition, I will include in this section, and in other sections of the site materials on the disturbing recent developments in the overall direction of British drug policy, which is heading toward repression and an American-style disaster. Thus, the issues here are broader than one doctor. 

Yet, my hope is that all in a position to help in this individual case will do everything in their power to secure justice, at long last, for this decent and, yes, for this poor suffering human being and wonderfully compassionate and competent healer. He does not deserve what has happened to him and which continues to happen. My appeal is addressed in the first instance to the medical and police professionals in Cornwall who singled Patrick Hickey out for persecution – as an old lawyer and former national civil rights official, I do not use such terms lightly – and sought to destroy him professionally and personally, and who have well-nigh succeeded. It is addressed also to the lawyers and leading members of the General Medical Council who have the power to restore Dr. Hickey to the Medical Register and thus give him back his license to practice his beloved profession. It is also addressed to the journalists and scholars who could write about the injustices of this case in a fair way that could help focus the spotlight of public and professional opinion on the crucial need to redress the injustices in this whole matter.

If these groups do take up this cause they will not only be helping Patrick Hickey but also they may well be working to prevent much agony and many deaths among the addicts of the United Kingdom and among the multitudes of people with whom they come in contact.

Because of the importance of the case, I intend to keep working on it in various ways until justice is secured. I may well write a book about the case or even seek to have it become the subject of a movie. In other words, I am committed and involved – and not necessarily coldly objective about the matter. 

The facts about the case will come out in ample detail in the materials that appear elsewhere here. In a nutshell, here is what happened. At the time of the crucial incident in the case, Dr. Hickey was a 43-year-old, well-trained General Practitioner or GP located in the pleasant western seacoast town of Newquay in the County of Cornwall. Because he had become interested in holistic medicine, Patrick Hickey had established The Holistic Medical Centre, and thus sought to treat body, mind, and soul when helping his patients. Only a few of the several thousand patients on his rolls could be considered drug addicts.

On September 10, 1987 Martin Harry Scholes, aged 29, appeared at Dr. Hickey’s surgery (as my English readers may know, that means "office" in American) seeking help for his suffering due to withdrawal from amphetamine abuse. Scholes had been a registered NHS patient in the past and Dr. Hickey assumed he still was. In any event, Dr. Hickey treated Scholes. This started with a lengthy consultation of over one hour during which a treatment plan was agreed upon – some holistic therapy, regular church attendance and religious counseling, vitamins, and a prescription for both Valium and Diconal, a synthetic opiate used for the control of pain and anxiety – and also much sought by addicts. The latter prescription was in fact the start of all of Dr. Hickey’s troubles, in part because the patient had a prior history of addiction to that drug.

The first Diconal prescription was for thirty 10-milligram (mg) tablets along with instructions that they were to be taken by mouth. A second prescription for another thirty tablets was given on September 15 and the fatal third prescription for fifteen tablets was given on the very next day, September 16. That evening, as far as is known, Martin Scholes said goodbye to his friends, dissolved his remaining tablets in water and injected himself with them, thus committing suicide.

Some years later, when asked my opinion as an expert by Christopher Rose, Dr. Hickey’s solicitor, about this case, I observed that (1) suicides among addicts were, sadly, quite common; (2) prescriptions totaling seventy-five 10mg tablets of an opiate in six days to an English addict were hardly high in comparison with many other such prescriptions I had studied; and (3) in any event the cause of death could not be found in any action of the doctor but in the independent decisions and action of the patient. I hold those views to this day.

Not, however, the English medical and judicial authorities. Dr. Hickey’s medical colleagues in Cornwall, along with the local police and especially the coroner, treated him like a murderer. They reported him to the national authorities in London. In 1990 the General Medical Council, which controls licenses to practice medicine within the unified system for the country, "erased" his name from the Medical Register. Since then he has not been able to practice medicine, for him a truly cruel punishment, one that tears at his soul.

Patrick Hickey has suffered repeated indignities and attacks on his honor from every quarter. For example, on national television, Dr. John Henry Marks, the former chairman of the British Medical Association, placed the blame for Scholes’ death squarely at his feet and said that had Dr. Hickey continued in practice and had Scholes not died another patient would have come along and died at his hands. I got involved in the matter at the stage when Dr. Hickey was suing Dr. Marks for defamation in the Royal Courts of Justice. That effort has so far been unsuccessful.

There is much more involved in this case as I have said but this will give my readers a feel for the basic issues. Please read on in the materials that are now posted here and the many more that will be posted in the future.

Please do what you can to help Dr. Hickey and the entire cause of enlightened medical practice especially in the treatment of addicts. You may contact me at The Trebach Institute by snail mail or at Info@trebach.org . I cannot promise to answer every request, as you know. Dr. Hickey’s email address is Patrick@penmellyn.fsnet.co.uk. You may also want to contact Dr. Hickey’s solicitor: 

Christopher A. Rose
24 Lower Market Street
Penryn, Cornwall TR10 8BG

Thanks so much for whatever help you can offer.

Arnold