A LEADING psychiatrist has won the first step in a bid to block a General Medical Council probe into allegations he subjected a woman to ‘bizarre’ parental tests.

Dr George Hibbert, who has run the rule over hundreds of parents for social services at his assessment centre in Blunsdon, is facing complaints from a woman who says he should be struck off after recommending her baby be taken into care.

The GMC launched an investigation after the woman, in her 30s, alleged, among other things, that Dr Hibbert subjected her to unorthodox assessments and wrongly urged that her three-month-old baby be taken from her care by social workers. He vehemently denies there is any basis to her complaints.

Last week, a top judge opened the way for Dr Hibbert to mount a full High Court challenge to the GMC’s decision to trigger an inquiry, saying there were ‘arguable grounds’ for stopping the probe in its tracks.

Martin Spencer QC, for Dr Hibbert, said the woman who made the complaints was a former-drug user about whom social workers became concerned after she became pregnant in 2005.

The mother and baby – who had been made the subject of a protective care order before she was born in early 2006 – was referred to Dr Hibbert’s Tadpole Cottage centre for assessment.

During the baby’s three-month stay at the centre, she ‘failed to thrive’ and lost weight rapidly, before being transferred to hospital for treatment.

“A doctor was concerned that the baby might be withdrawing from drugs taken by her mother during the pregnancy,” said Mr Spencer.

The barrister said Dr Hibbert voiced concerns about the woman’s fitness as a parent and ‘stated his opinion that the baby should not be placed in her care’ before they were discharged from the assessment centre in mid-2006.

The baby was put into foster care but then returned to her mother later that year after a family judge ruled that was in the child’s best interests.

In June last year, the GMC received a complaint from the mother relating to her stay at Dr Hibbert’s Assessment in Care centre.

The woman claimed she was banned her from seeing her family during the assessment and that her baby was fed from a teat for such long spells that she developed a lip deformity.

She alleged she was subjected her to ‘bizarre’ parental tests, such as performing household chores in the centre while the baby was strapped to her, and criticised Dr Hibbert’s final recommendation that the baby be removed from her care, Mr Spencer added.

The QC said the GMC had also received another complaint about Dr Hibbert and he had been blasted in the media as a result. This included coverage in the Advertiser, as well as national publications such as the Daily Mail.

Departing from restrictions that normally block complaints being investigated more than five years after the event, the GMC decided to look into the woman’s accusations.

Mr Spencer argued the GMC was wrong to proceed without allowing Dr Hibbert a chance to challenge the mother’s assertion that she had ‘not felt strong enough’ to complain before.

However, Gemma White, for the GMC, said: “At this stage the question was simply whether the investigation should proceed, notwithstanding the five-year-rule.”

She said Dr Hibbert could defend the accusations if and when they reached a full hearing.

Mr Justice Ouseley granted permission for the case to be considered in a full judicial review, likely to take place in October.