Press release: HXR member Diana Warner found guilty by GMC of professional misconduct for climate protest
Press release Sunday 18th August 2024
Retired Bristol GP found guilty of misconduct over climate protests
Retired GP Diana Warner, 65, of Filton, Bristol has been found guilty of professional misconduct at a tribunal convened by the General Medical Council (GMC) for her role in three separate climate protests.
Warner, a practising GP for 37 years who has worked at various surgeries around the city, said:
“The GMC was blind to the context of my actions. They argued in the tribunal that doctors must obey the law at all times. But this is a dangerous stance. As a second-generation Holocaust survivor, I know that it is sometimes right to disobey laws and orders. We are not putting people into gas chambers, but our failure to reduce emissions will cause the deaths of millions.”
Dr Warner was referred by the GMC to The Medical Practitioners Tribunal after being handed custodial sentences in 2021 and 2022 for twice breaching an injunction preventing protest on the M25. She was also jailed for six weeks for glueing her hand to the dock during a plea hearing at Highbury Corner Magistrates Court in 2022.
This hearing is the second of its kind, after a similar tribunal found Dr Sarah Benn, an NHS doctor of over 30 years, guilty of professional misconduct in April. Another Bristol GP, Dr Patrick Hart, 38, from Knowle, will also face a tribunal in February 2025 after rejecting a formal GMC warning relating to his criminal convictions for other climate protests.
While Dr Hart and Dr Warner have both been tried by juries (Dr Benn has not), no jury has found them guilty of any offence. All three have cited the duty of care they feel towards their patients as the driving force behind their acts of civil disobedience, and they’re not alone.
More than 130 health professionals have been arrested in the last few years, demanding the UK government do more to protect the public from the climate crisis, widely recognised as a global health emergency. In 2021, a joint editorial was released by 200 leading international medical journals, stating:
“The science is unequivocal; a global increase of 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse.”
Despite global governments’ pledges to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions, the world is way off track to meet Paris climate goals, according to the UN.1 Last year, 47,000 people in Europe died due to heat2, while the World Health Organisation estimates that between 2030 and 2050 there will be 250,000 excess deaths caused by climate change.3
Melinda Janki, winner of the 2023 Commonwealth Law Conference Rule of Law award, gave an expert witness statement at Dr Warner’s tribunal. In it she said:
“How can the public retain confidence in a medical profession which does not use its unique scientific understanding to alert the public and stand up to the institutional systems that are allowing one industry to destroy and damage human life?”
Dr Fiona Godlee, former Editor in Chief at The British Medical Journal and an ambassador for the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change has spoken out in support of Dr Warner, saying:
“I and many others are grateful to Dr Warner for putting herself on the line. Her actions will only serve to increase trust in the medical profession for calling for urgent action on the climate emergency. I fear these punishments by the courts and the GMC will fall on the wrong side of history as the grim realities of the climate crisis hit home.”
Warner’s hearing took place as climate records continued to be broken around the world4. Between July 2023 and June 2024, global temperatures consistently hit 1.5C above pre-industrial times5, with the four hottest days ever recorded occurring in July 20246.
In the same month, five climate protestors were sentenced to a combined total of 21 years in prison. UN Special Rapporteur for Environmental Defenders, Michel Forst, who attended their trial, wrote an open letter earlier this year to the British government expressing concerns over “the increasingly severe crackdowns on environmental defenders in the United Kingdom”.
He continued: “The right to peaceful protest is a basic human right. It is also an essential part of a healthy democracy. Protests, which aim to express dissent and to draw attention to a particular issue, are by their nature disruptive. The fact that they cause disruption or involve civil disobedience does not mean they are not peaceful.”7
NOTE FOR EDITORS:
Expert witnesses at Warner’s tribunal included Caroline Hickman, Bath University lecturer and international expert in the mental health effects of the climate and ecological emergencies, and Melinda Janki, winner of The Commonwealth Law Conference Rule of Law award 2023.
Both Caroline Hickman and Diana Warner are available for interview. You can read more about Diana’s tribunal in The Guardian. Please see this thread on X for quotes from the expert witnesses.
In response to the GMC’s decision, and their recent guidance on protest, HXR have published this statement
SOURCES
3 https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health