A former Cambridge GP who was struck off in 1999 for reusing hypodermic needles on patients, has been struck off again, this time for criminal convictions including for assault and fraud. Photo / NZME

A doctor convicted of punching his teenage daughter in the face and forging documents to get a $25,000 loan in his wife’s name has been barred from practising in New Zealand for one year.

Dr Julian Meredith Clive White’s assault and dishonesty convictions, involving forging documents to make a false insurance claim, prompted the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal to cancel the GP’s registration.

The convictions, together with the fact the doctor failed to disclose on his application for an annual practising certificate (APC) that he was being investigated by Australian medical authorities, amounted to professional misconduct.

In a decision released today, the tribunal said the convictions and failure to disclose the 2018 investigation by the Medical Board of Australia “brought discredit to the profession” and reflected adversely on the doctor’s fitness to practise.

It’s not the first time the London-trained doctor’s registration has been cancelled by New Zealand medical authorities.

In late 1999, Dr Meredith White, as he was known then, was based at Cambridge’s Duke St Health and Medical Centre when he was struck off by the then Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal after he was found guilty of unbecoming, professional and disgraceful misconduct.

His unethical conduct included reusing hypodermic needles on patients and convincing an elderly patient with financial problems to sell her house to his family trust.

He also did not dispute changing medication without check-ups, prescribing without explaining side effects, and incorrectly labelling specimens.

White failed to follow up cervical smear results, allowed his girlfriend to sit in on consultations, talked about his patients in front of others and consistently used offensive language to patients and staff.

In December 2005 White re-registered with the Medical Council and in 2010 he obtained vocational registration in General Practice.

In January 2018 White was working in Newman, Western Australia, when he saw 8-year-old Aled Miller three times.

His mother Kylie Miller later told the ABC that White did not treat Aled’s symptoms of vomiting, migraines, weight loss and weakness with urgency and although he referred Aled to a neurologist in Perth he did not mark it urgent.

After the third visit to White, Miller took her son to a hospital in Perth where he was immediately diagnosed with a brain tumour.

Hers was one of three complaints against White from two patients in February that year to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Authority (AHPRA).

The following month the Australian Medical Board notified White it would investigate.

Meanwhile, in July that year New Zealand Police charged him with three counts of using forged documents, and various male assaults female and forgery charges followed between September 2018 and May 2019.

In August that year, while facing three dishonesty charges in New Zealand, White applied to the Medical Council of New Zealand for an annual practising certificate but did not mention the charges or the ongoing investigation in Australia.

In October the same year, as White was facing more charges by police, the Australian Medical Board referred its investigation to the State Administrative Tribunal of Western Australia.

The following year, on July 10, 2019, White made another application for an annual practising certificate and failed to disclose the further police charges, and the Australian investigation.

Two weeks later, on July 25, the Australian Tribunal ruled White behaved in a way that constituted professional misconduct for notetaking failings and that he failed to properly examine Aled, failing to provide him with an urgent referral to a paediatric neurologist.

The doctor was reprimanded and conditions were imposed on his Australian registration.

Back in New Zealand, White was convicted in the Hamilton District Court in 2021 of assaulting his 15-year-old daughter when he struck her in the face with his fist as she attempted to move away from him.

He was also convicted of using a forged document to obtain a loan in October 2008, signing a Finance Security Agreement in the name of his wife for $25,000 in March 2014, and obtaining a false valuation on a boat and using an affidavit in another name in February 2017.

Five further convictions of obtaining by deception or using a document for pecuniary advantage related to a false insurance claim filed in January 2017 for six figurines and bathroom tiles damaged in the Kaikōura earthquake.

In November 2021 White signed a voluntary undertaking agreeing not to practise in New Zealand, while continuing to work in New South Wales.

White was sentenced to four months’ home detention and ordered to pay $2000 reparation to his daughter.

In his response to the tribunal in May last year, the doctor said his failure to declare the convictions to the Medical Council was an oversight, and he blamed his failure to disclose the AHPRA investigation on confusion with the process, and because he “believed the matter could be quashed”.

But the tribunal said the “disclosure of relevant investigations or charges is a critical aspect of the practising certificate application process”.

“Given the nature and number of the omissions, the tribunal is also satisfied that the conduct is a sufficiently serious departure from accepted standards to warrant a disciplinary sanction.”

At a hearing in February this year, the Professional Conduct Committee said there were a number of aggravating factors.

These included that the offending spanned 13 years; apart from the assault on his daughter, who was vulnerable, White did not indicate any insight or remorse maintaining the frauds were family matters; he defended the criminal hearing; he was obscuring highly prejudicial information that would have likely resulted in Medical Council action; and his previous disciplinary history showed at best an incapacity for reflection and rehabilitation and at worse the start of a long pattern of unethical and incompetent behaviour.

The tribunal said it was “particularly concerned with the age of the practitioner’s daughter and the long period of time over which the various dishonesty offences occurred”.

White’s lawyer, Harry Waalkens, argued his client was extremely remorseful and had apologised for his behaviour. Waalkens said a degree of time had elapsed since White’s previous disciplinary history.

White’s registration was cancelled and he was suspended from reapplying for one year. He was censured and ordered to pay $11,011 in costs.

Natalie Akoorie is the Open Justice deputy editor, based in Waikato and covering crime and justice nationally. Natalie first joined the Herald in 2011 and has been a journalist in New Zealand and overseas for 27 years covering health, social issues, local government, and the regions.