'Bloodgate' doctor happy that nightmare is over

The matchday doctor at the centre of the ’Bloodgate’ scandal is free to return to medicine and hopes to put an 18-month “nightmare” behind her.

Dr Wendy Chapman said the saga had been a “great strain” as she looked ahead to finding new employment.

A General Medical Council disciplinary panel ruled on Tuesday that her fitness to practise is not impaired and lifted her interim suspension.

She was found guilty of serious misconduct when she cut the lip of Harlequins player Tom Williams and then lied about the event but it was found she would not have acted in the way she did but for the depression she was suffering at the time.

The case concluded yesterday when the GMC panel said it was “appropriate” and “proportionate” to issue a formal warning against her.

Panel chairman Dr Brian Alderman said: “The panel considers it to be in the public interest to formally indicate that your conduct was unacceptable and should not be repeated.”

The warning will be attached to her registration for five years and must be disclosed to anyone inquiring about her fitness to practise history.

Williams’ supposed injury meant a specialist goalkicker was able to come on to the pitch for Harlequins in the dying minutes of last year’s Heineken Cup rugby union quarter-final tie against Irish side Leinster, who held on to win 6-5.

Last week, Dr Chapman, 46, told the GMC panel she was “ashamed” she gave in to pressure from Williams, who begged her in the changing rooms to conceal that, minutes earlier, he had bitten into a fake-blood capsule on the pitch.

She said she was then “horrified” that she went on to lie to a European Rugby Cup (ERC) hearing that the injury was genuine and supported the club’s initial statement of innocence.

The panel accepted medical evidence which showed Dr Chapman was suffering from depression for about two years before she cut the player’s lip on April 12, 2009.

It noted that she was also awaiting the results of an MRI scan to exclude the possibility of breast cancer – with a strong family history of the disease – and was involved in a work dispute at her NHS post.

Speaking on her behalf following the hearing, her solicitor Charles Dewhurst said: “Dr Chapman is pleased that the panel has determined that her fitness to practise is not impaired.

“She made it quite clear in her evidence that what she did was wrong, that she finds it hard to explain and that she feels ashamed of her actions.”