Car boot doctor struck off

Dr Kinnell sold pills from a pub

A doctor who prescribed strong slimming pills from the boot of a car and a pub has been struck off.

Dr Herbert Kinnell, 60, was found guilty of serious professional misconduct at a disciplinary hearing of the General Medical Council.

The GMC heard he had dispensed the pills at a number of makeshift clinics in Berkshire, Sussex and Norfolk.

He failed to conduct appropriate examinations or to safeguard the best medical interests of the patients cited in the case, the professional conduct committee was told.

Car boot sales

His "patients" included three undercover policewomen, who visited him at a clinic in the Ark pub, Thetford, Norfolk, in June 1998.

Other clinincs were at the community centre at Greenham, Berkshire, and from a car boot at Dormans Community Centre car park in Crawley, Sussex.

Professor Norman MacKay, chairman of the GMC professional conduct committee, ordered Dr Kinnell, of Cross Street, Reading, to be struck off.

She told him: "Your behaviour was a gross departure from professional standards.

"The committee do not consider that the evidence advanced in your defence amounts to a valid reason for such a gross departure."