Now ex-doctor Richard Freeman lost his appeal after he was found guilty of ordering testosterone for doping purposes.
Former Sky and UK cycling team doctor Richard Freeman lost his appeal on Monday against the decision to remove him from the UK medical register, taken after he was found guilty of ordering testosterone from doping purposes. Dr Freeman was disbarred in 2021 after a court considered his behavior to be “fundamentally inconsistent with continued registrationat the order of doctors.
His legal team immediately announced that an appeal would be lodged, but this failed as the High Court found nothing wrong with the initial verdict. “JMW Solicitors disappointed with High Court judgment dismissing Dr Richard Freeman’s appeal against Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service’s decision to remove his name from the Medical Register“, indicates in a press release its legal team.
Freeman additionally faced two charges from the UK Anti-Doping Agency: one for possession of a banned substance and the other for tampering or attempting to tamper with an item of doping control. These procedures were interrupted following his appeal, but they should now be relaunched.
Freeman admitted 18 of the 22 charges against him, but denied the central charge relating to the subject of a 2011 order for Testogel, a hormone treatment used to treat symptoms related to testosterone deficiency. . He claimed at the time that the testosterone had been ordered to treat former performance manager Shane Sutton’s erection problems, which Sutton denied.
The case has cast a shadow over the British national cycling team, which has become a dominant force at the Olympics, and the former Sky team, which won the Tour de France on several occasions in the 2010s. Doctor, who was simultaneously employed by the British and Sky team – now Ineos Grenadiers – between 2009 and 2015, resigned from British Cycling in 2017 for health reasons after leaving the Sky team two years earlier.