A Birmingham GP who arranging an illegal late abortion for her teenage daughter in Spain has been struck off the medical register.
The General Medical Council (GMC) told Dr Saroj Adlakha, of Somerset Road, Edgbaston, she had been ‘deceitful’ and ‘dishonest’ for taking 18-year-old daughter Shilpa Abrol for the termination in Barcelona.
Miss Abrol told the GMC disciplinary hearing that she assumed her mother paid for the £3,000 procedure in 2003, 31 weeks into the pregnancy - seven weeks past the UK’s 24 week legal limit - to avoid ‘embarrassment’ within the Indian community.
A GMC panel ruled 62-year-old Adlakha, who ran Shilpa Medical Centre in Kings Heath, was guilty of misconduct for a ‘catalogue of serious breaches’ after she was found to have been dishonest on four occasions.
Panel chairman Ralph Bergmann said the doctor’s conduct suggested ‘deep-seated attitudinal problems’.
“The misconduct was repeated, took place over a prolonged period of time and represented serious departures from the relevant standards as set out in good medical practice,” Mr Bergmann said.
“The panel has expressed its concern regarding two core features of this case, namely, willingness to provide support, advice and assistance to obtain an abortion which you knew or believed to be unlawful, and multiple instances of deceit, lack of probity and dishonesty.
“These failings, together with a total lack of demonstrable insight on your part are so serious as to be incompatible with continuing to be a registered medical practitioner.”
Miss Abrol, whose father is also a doctor, was studying politics, philosophy and economics at Essex University, when she found out she was pregnant for a second time after had already undergoing one abortion, arranged by her mother, 10 months earlier.
After her daughter was turned away from Edgbaston’s Calthorpe Clinic for being too late for an abortion, Adlakha, a former employee at Calthorpe Clinic, booked flights and the clinic in Spain, the panel heard.
Adlakha, who decided not to give evidence to the GMC, was later exposed in 2004 when she offered to help two undercover reporters do the same for their fictitious daughter.
She tried to cover up her actions and lied to police about her daughter’s pregnancy and although the mother and daughter faced prosecution for conspiracy to commit child destruction abroad, the charge was dropped two years later.
Adlakha was suspended by the South Birmingham Primary Care Trust in December 2004, which has cost more than £600,000 for locum doctors.
