From the Lancashire Evening Post Edited for length and content
A Preston-based psychiatrist has failed to overturn a ruling which bans him from seeing female patients without a chaperone.
Joseph Meagher, 47, who lives in Avenham, was barred by the General Medical Council last year after it heard he had sex with a vulnerable female patient when he was working in Canada 13 years ago.
He had attempted to challenge the ruling, arguing it was too restrictive.
But a high court judge has dismissed the case.
Dr Meagher, a qualified medic, is now reading health policy and recently moved to Preston with his wife Iracema and their two young children.
Last November a GMC fitness to practise panel was told that while practising in Canada in 1993, he had sex with a young female patient who had previously suffered sexual abuse.
He was later found guilty of misconduct by Canadian medical officials.
The doctor, originally from Ireland, worked in Cork before moving to Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport.
The panel said he had been "economical with the truth" with his NHS employers and ruled Dr Meagher should not see female patients without a chaperone present and must make employers aware of his past.
He had disputed the original medical hearing into the incident in British Colombia, on which the GMC case rested.
His lawyers had also argued that his ability to practise was not currently impaired because of the length of time that had expired since the incident.
They claimed the ruling amounted to an effective ban, as it severely restricted the type of jobs Dr Meagher could do.
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