A Home Office pathologist has failed in a High Court bid to challenge the refusal of West Midland Police to give him work pending disciplinary proceedings for alleged incompetence.
But the court expressed concern over Dr Peter Acland’s fears that he could face financial ruin because of the time it is taking his case to come to a hearing.
Providing forensic services for the police represents some 90 per cent of his total income, a judge was told.
Four police authorities in the Midlands area have recently stopped employing him.
Dr Acland, of Newton Street, Birmingham, took just one of them - the West Midlands force - to court in a bid to establish that he had been treated unfairly and unlawfully. The others were not named.
His lawyers argued there had been a breach of the forensic pathologist’s “legitimate expectation” that he would be offered work pending any disciplinary hearing as he had not been suspended from the Home Office register for pathologists.
But Mr Justice Simon, sitting at the High Court in London, refused him permission to seek judicial review.
The judge said there was “a significant public interest” in the police not being forced to use his services. He said the expert investigation of serious crime - of which homicides were a highly visible example to the public - “may be undermined by unresolved allegations of incompetence by a prosecution forensic pathologist”.
In any event it was open to Dr Acland to sue the police for damages for the losses he had sustained.
Philip Engelman, appearing for Dr Acland, had told the court he was part of a group practice that had “a memorandum of understanding” with the police that gave rise to a legitimate expectation that he would be employed on forensic investigations.
The judge described how, up until 2007, Dr Acland was frequently instructed by the police, averaging 100-120 cases a year by the four police forces. But last year doubts were raised over his capabilities, and there was criticism arising in two homicide cases in which he had been involved.
Dr Acland “vehemently disputed” that he was at fault in either case. No action was being taken against him in one, but in the other he was facing a disciplinary tribunal.
The judge said the evidence showed he was losing £20,000 a month in income, and the delay in the disciplinary proceedings was “disturbing on any view”.
Later the judge added: “I reiterate my concern over the delays in this case and express the hope the matter may be resolved one way or another without any further significant delay.”
