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By Dr Fereydun Rafiq Hilmi:
5. A vivid example of the disparity between the rights of individuals and those of institutions and power blocs
Speaking from recent personal experience, I found that at least four UK judges diligently used ‘precedence’ and so on to stop me getting justice in a clear case of medical negligence which caused my near blindness. I encountered collusion among those judges to prevent my case from getting to trial and I had to struggle for four years to reach a court which was presided over by a most objectionable lady with not an ounce of fairness or justice in her entire body cells. Over eight days of questioning, proving beyond any doubt the incompetence and negligence of the doctors (through the conflict in their statements, lies proven under oath and finally an unsolicited email by one of the surgeons – who had caused me most damage – ‘humbly asking for my forgiveness’), she noted all of these facts and admitted lack of proper consent – and then ruled in their favour.
Below I reproduce the email from the doctor (name withheld):
“Dear Dr Hilmi,
I was terribly sorry, in court today, to hear of your experience at my hands.
I listened very carefully to distil the very serious points you were making, and even though I disagree with some of your assumptions and conclusions, you have taught me a great deal by courageously challenging what is accepted as orthodox treatment.
Sometimes the balance which must be struck, in severe disease presentations, is a delicate one between the treatment and the disease itself. Please be assured that whatever the outcome, I did my best for you with the resources available to me at the time. Hindsight is a great luxury.
I resolve to communicate more clearly in the future and to understand my patients’ needs and expectations better. I humbly ask for your forgiveness for failing to achieve that.
May God bless your path, and may His grace redeem your suffering.
My Arabic is only modest – I wish it were better, but the language is hard!
My best wishes for the future,
Yours sincerely”
The judge, who admitted she did not quite understand the technical issues, nevertheless ruled in the manner of an expert, mixing up the entire case and misplacing sections of my investigations and the cross examinations which I conducted in a most professional manner, proving a far better understanding of the medical and scientific issues than the so-called doctors and their imposter ‘expert’ (I proved that he was no expert in court).
She indicated from the start through her behaviour that she had already made up her mind. It was clear that I had very little vision and had spent a great deal of time and effort to understand the medical issues as well as the legal issues. Concerning the medical issues I had prepared for a truly expert doctor, but clearly they had none and the one they had lied several times and displayed enormous incompetence. The Judge knew about my disability and difficulty in conducting such a case without a lawyer to represent me. Here I should emphasise that no lawyer agreed to represent me, no matter what I tried, which forced me to take the case to court myself.
The same judge then rejected not only my appeal lawyers’ application for an appeal, but even rejected a short extension of 14 days for these lawyers to prepare for an appeal to the Appeals court. She used the excuse that it was too complex to be reviewed and she had had a lot of trouble understanding it and that an appeal would be a waste of taxpayers’ money. Thus, having delayed the case using every trick in the book for four years, she found it ‘time wasting’ to allow 14 days to form an appeal application, even though the lawyers had condemned her judgement on 19 point of law, one of which was that it was an injustice and breach of my rights.
Just before the brief hearing to reject our initial application, my very expensive counsel confided in me, saying the judge had told him that she had to put the matter to bed because the ‘powers that be’ wanted it so.
Another curious thing was the appearance on the second day of an old man who sat next to the judge observing the proceedings without any explanation by the judge as to who he was or what he was doing sat next to her.
I spent at least four years studying the human eye and diabetic retinopathy and I thoroughly researched the use of laser in the US and the UK, in the most famous studies and experimentations, and I communicated with the hospital legal team, all of which cost me no real loss of funds. When I lost the case, I wanted to appeal within the 21 days allowed but could only find a greedy and deceptive firm who intended to do nothing for as much loot as possible. In the end, and after paying them £18,000, they demanded another £18,000 to complete the application form and submit it and stated that that would be the end of their involvement. On that basis I would need more than £100,000 to use lawyers to get to the pre-appeal state.
I have given these facts to demonstrate how difficult it can be for the average person in the UK to get justice.
The judge stated on day one that such cases were not easily winnable because of the complicated procedures. But when she saw that I knew exactly how to conduct the case – and so well that the four days had to be extended to eight days – she helped the defendants in every possible way: breaching the procedure, refusing to allow me time to prepare for witnesses I had not been notified of, allowing a doctor to change his statement just before reading it (because he claimed that his counsel had made unauthorised changes) and allowing clear and proven perjury and a total conflict of statements. She even had the cheek to suggest that I was unreliable because I had made a comment which I could not verify about an incident 15 years prior to the court hearing.
I was a clear victim of these so-called ophthalmologists and yet she used these difficulties to the advantage of the hospital and did her utmost to stop me winning. The lady, who claimed I might not be able to understand let alone handle the procedure, breached it at every point, preventing me from completing my evidence and refusing to let me treat the doctors responsible for my blindness as the accused, forcing me to question them as innocent witnesses only. When I tried to summon the hospital CEO, she accepted the hospital lawyer’s excuse that he was too busy to come to court. As a result I had no defendant to question and was prevented from using my computer to read out the questions and forced to work entirely from memory, putting an enormous strain on me.
She even allowed a despicable trick by the counsel for the defendants, which entailed telling me after each day of trial the names of the witnesses for the next day – only to be presented with a completely different witness in the morning. In the future I will be covering this trial in much more detail in a paperback.
It then took a further 3 months and several reminder messages for the judgment to appear. The appeal was denied on the completely ridiculous pretext that ‘not enough laser had been allowed’. Almost completely blinded, after 6 years and over six thousand lasers in each eye, the appeal judges in their great wisdom considered that I should have allowed the doctors more access to my destroyed eyes. I think they were hoping they had completely blinded me and stopped me from reading anything about the great corruption which has eroded the basis of all civilized behaviour amongst them.
What I proved beyond any doubt was that the doctors knew very little about laser, its use and the reasons for its use. They did not know for sure that it did any good or what great damage it could cause, even though these dangers were found in their documentation and had been kept well away from the patients who they would scare into submission, praising the efficacy of the procedures. Thus the patient’s right to give informed consent to such a highly dangerous interference with their eyes was systemically and openly breached in the full view of the hospital, its management and – I discovered – the medical associations and councils which are meant to hold doctors and medical professionals to account.
What the judge and the judicial system proved, in that trial, was that they held unclear and dubious values and principles not even remotely close to justice, fairness or honour.
Outside the pathetic state of affairs in the professional services world – with their complacent regulatory associations, councils and watchdogs – we find an equally chaotic government system. The safeguards from dictatorship, corruption and injustice are Parliament, the judiciary and the police. When corruption spreads to these three most vital and important institutions, it is time to throw away the entire system and its smelly contents. I can see a solution only in direct and real-time democracy which would make it unnecessary to have politicians at the top of the pyramid, replacing them by the people’s direct control of their lives.
For far too long those in power, and their propaganda Murdochs and other over-sized concerns, have told us ‘there is no alternative’. Strange but quite similar to the arguments they used in Egypt, the defunct Soviet Union and now in Iraq and elsewhere.
To be continued.
