Blackpool doctor could finally be struck off after tribunal said he raped a woman
Foy-Yamah's conducted was initially found to have not quite crossed the line for 'erasure from the medical register'
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In March we reported on a doctor - already sacked by Blackpool Victoria Hospital - who avoided being struck off despite a tribunal ruling he had raped a woman.
That decision could now be reversed. Two appeals will take place - the doctor is appealing his 12 month suspension, and the General Medical Council is appealing the leniency of the punishment.
It’s important to note that Lancashire Constabulary and the CPS never brought charges against this doctor.
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Blackpool doctor could finally be struck off after tribunal said he raped a woman
By Michael Holmes
A Blackpool Victoria Hospital doctor who was found by a tribunal to have raped a woman could finally be struck off - after previously being spared the punishment.
Aloaye Afakhade Foy-Yamah was suspended for 12 months after a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Services panel ruled his sex attack “came right up to the line of erasure (from the medical register) but fell just short of crossing it”.
The medic, who trained at the University of Benin in Nigeria in 1995 before moving to the UK, appealed against the punishment and has continued to maintain his innocence.
But the General Medical Council also appealed, saying the MPTS panel victim-blamed and dished out a punishment that fails to properly protect the public.
Mr Justice Ritchie, sitting at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, has now dismissed Foy-Yamah’s appeal - and sided with the GMC.
Ordering the MPTS to reconsider the sanction handed out to Foy-Yamah, the judge said it “failed properly to take into account his conduct, lack of insight, his lack of remediation”.
He said in his judgement: “It is clear that there are substantial risks to any woman who may become friendly with Dr Foy outside work, in Blackpool, and may then go back to his house (or to her accommodation) and lead him to feel aroused.
“Furthermore, there was no sufficient evidence before the panel that Dr Foy realised that when Ms A said no, that meant no, quite the opposite.”
A GMC spokesperson said: “We welcome the High Court’s decision. We are clear that that any form of sexual misconduct has no place in healthcare. At the fresh tribunal we will argue once again, that erasure is the appropriate sanction in this case.”
Foy-Yamah has always protested his innocence - claiming he is the victim of a blackmail attempt - and was not charged by police after an investigation into the attack, which happened in December 2018, because of “evidential difficulties”.
He was initially suspended by the hospital, in Whinney Heys Road, in light of the allegations against him but was allowed back to work in February 2019 and even promoted.
He was eventually sacked in November 2024 after the tribunal concluded he had indeed carried out the rape.
He could now be banned from ever treating patients again.
Foy-Yamah’s victim, who has automatic lifelong anonymity as a sex attack victim and cannot legally be identified, told police what happened to her in a statement read by the MPTS panel.
In an interview with officers almost a month after her ordeal, she said Foy-Yamah, a specialist registrar in gastroenterology, touched her and tried to kiss her as the pair relaxed on a couch.
“I start moving my head from side to side,” she said. “I cannot speak as every time I open my mouth he tries to put his tongue in my mouth.
“I am pushing on his shoulders trying to get him off. He then grabs my arms and pins them to (the) sofa.”
The woman described Foy-Yamah “moaning and panting” as he pulled her clothes off.
Her description of what happened then is too graphic for publication.
Afterwards, she said she went to the bathroom and used her phone - with Foy-Yamah following her, “crying and begging me, asking if I am reporting him”.
She added: “Then in the morning, like this same morning but at about daybreak, when he was about to go to work … he says still he’s sorry, he doesn’t know what… Sorry and all that. I’m just… I’m like, ‘Why? Why did it happen? Why did it have to be me?’ Sorry. He’s crying. That, please, he’s sorry and all that stuff.”
Foy-Yamah admitted trying to kiss the woman but said he stopped when she asked him to and went to his bedroom.
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