In an article in the Daily Mail which only came out very late last night, who much to their credit are keeping up with Dr Hibbert’s story and monitoring its development, we are told about a co-worker, yet another professional, who had doubts about the way Dr Hibbert was running his practice.

Reading the article, you can see a mixture of potential problems from dubious practice of Dr Hibbert’s own making, cutting corners in the examination process of parents (due, either, we presume to the desire to either take more parents in and make a larger profit or perhaps equally to cut down assessment delays) and the now seemingly routine practice in the family justice system of hiring experts who then pass the workload down to their unqualified workers (unqualified to carry out the complex assessments, which is why a so-called expert is hired in the first place), and who don’t seem to engage properly with the families, at all.

This would be understandable if we were talking about one of the thousands of professionals inside the system  – not everyone can be meticulous all of the time, but this is not just ‘some professional’ inside the system. This is, supposedly, the best the system has to offer: the leading light that leads others in the profession, to carry out similar standards.

You can see how an epidemic of poor services can start and spread, when one leading professional is marked out as the gold standard. And it’s a disgrace. The family justice system should be hanging its head in shame, rather than looking the other way. We await the GMC Fitness to Practise hearing, with interest.

Thank you once again to Miss A, for drawing our attention to this latest development.

Dr Hibbert