GP expresses regret over handling of Daniel Pelka case

A doctor who received a concerned phone call from a teacher about a pupil shortly before the boy was murdered felt it did not appear “urgent”, a disciplinary panel heard.

Mohammad Pathan – who was the GP of four-year-old Daniel Pelka, the schoolboy beaten and left to die after six months of starvation and cruelty at the hands of his mother and stepfather – said he had not suspected neglect or maltreatment after the phone call.

Today he appeared before the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) to face allegations that his fitness to practise is impaired.

The hearing was told that after listening to the concerns of Little Heath Primary School deputy headteacher Gillian Mulhall, who told him that Daniel was stealing food from pupils, he chose not to question her further.

He advised Mrs Mulhall to get the boy’s parents to make an appointment after receiving the call on January 25 2012, more than a month before his death in March that year.

His mother Magdelena Luczak and her partner Mariusz Krezolek were sentenced to life imprisonment in August 2013 after being convicted of murdering Daniel, referred to in the hearing as Patient A, at their Coventry home.

Today Dr Pathan told the panel that he regretted not putting a safety net on the boy’s file.

Mrs Mulhall was said to have waited on the line for almost 10 minutes before relaying her concerns to the doctor in the six-minute call.

Dr Pathan, who has practised in the UK for 44 years, admitted that he did not probe her for more information, believing that the best course of action was to get the parents to bring in the child so he could assess Daniel himself.

He said: “The best thing, I thought, was for the parents to bring the child to me for assessment. I considered it could be a behavioural problem but I ought to see the child myself. I asked the deputy head to ask the parents to bring the child to see me. At that time it didn’t appear to me that urgent.”

But the hearing was told that he did not inquire as to who the boy’s mother was because “he did not consider it serious at the time” and therefore was unaware of her history of depression and domestic violence in the home.

Despite knowing that the child had not been brought for immunisations or follow-up treatment in the past, the hearing was told that Dr Pathan failed to identify that Patient A would not be brought.

Two weeks after the call, on February 8, a letter from the school raising concerns said that the boy had “a keen appetite” and would “raid” other pupils’ lunchboxes.

On more than one occasion he was found in toilet cubicles with food hidden in his trousers and plans had to be put in place when birthday cake was brought in. The letter further read that the “excessive amounts would be hard for an adult to consume”.

But Dr Pathan denied that he had been given such details and said he was not told of the child’s weight loss or paleness. He told the hearing: “I should have put a safety net on the patient’s file but I didn’t and I regret that.”

He told the hearing that the day of the phone call was “a busy day” at the surgery and he could have had as many as 15 consultations that morning.

He said he was able to remember the call but admitted only making a basic record of the conversation. When asked why, he said: “It was the death of the child. We were all shocked, we can’t forget what happened.”

He accepted that it had been an “unusual” occurrence for a teacher to call him directly about a patient, coupled with the child stealing food, and he was rarely contacted by teachers.

Dr Pathan admits that he failed to record adequate details of the information provided during the phone call and that he failed to formulate an action plan to ensure appropriate follow-up of the concerns, but he denies his fitness to practise is impaired.

The hearing continues tomorrow.

Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2015, All Rights Reserved.