Dr Sarah Benn has long been concerned about the climate crisis, diligently recycling until she was “blue in the face”. But the rise of the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion in 2019 inspired her and her husband to go further. “We thought: well, if we don’t do it then who else is going to?” While working as a GP near Birmingham, Benn became increasingly involved in direct action over the next few years, and once glued her hand to the door of the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy in protest at the government’s inaction on the climate.
*sighs* If only they spent as much time seeing patients as they do virtue signalling, we'd respect them more...
Benn now faces a professional tribunal by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS), the disciplinary arm of the General Medical Council (GMC), to determine whether she can keep her licence to practise. She is one of three GPs who face being struck off for climate activism this year, and her case in April is the first that will be heard.
After her first four criminal convictions – two for obstructing a highway, one for stopping people engaged in a lawful activity and one for flying a drone in a restricted place – the GMC opened an investigation.
Yes, Reader, you read that right - it takes FOUR convictions to get them to come in off the golf course and take a good hard look...
It was not until Benn was found guilty of contempt of court for breaching a civil injunction at Kingsbury oil terminal in Warwickshire as part of a Just Stop Oil campaign that she was referred for a full tribunal. Benn spent a total of 31 days in prison for this action.
And she's far from the only one:
Dr Patrick Hart, a GP from Bristol, also has a string of convictions for climate activism, one of which resulted in a suspended prison sentence. After he rejected a formal warning from the GMC, he was told he would face a tribunal in November.
“The lawyer I spoke to said it was unusually lenient but I didn’t take it. Partly because it would have been dishonest and partly because I’m angry with them for … failing to make any meaningful statement about any of this and enthusiastically investigating people for matters of conscience and patient care,” Hart said.
Where's the 'patient care' in all this grandstanding?
Benn has now retired and is no longer practising as a GP. But she wants the GMC to recognise the importance of her actions, and said doctors should be seen as “trusted messengers”.
Not happening.
