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Heart risk patient, 27, claims he was massaged by doctor

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22 October 2007

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A General Medical Council (GMC) fitness to practise panel has heard a doctor gave a man body massages after telling him he was in danger of having a heart attack.

Dr The Rev Anthony Walton, 59, told the 27-year-old carpenter, known only as patient C, that he was a time bomb waiting to explode and would have a heart attack or a stroke within a couple of weeks, the panel heard.

“He didn’t offer me anything on the NHS, he said he had his own little clinic which specialises in relaxation therapy,” patient C told the hearing in London.

Dr Walton is accused of indecency in relation to patient C and another patient, known only as patient B, and it is alleged that his fitness to practise is impaired.

The doctor, who qualified at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, is not present for the hearing but he is represented.

The hearing has been told he is a member of Grace Christian Fellowship Church.

Patient C said he went to the surgery in London Road, Wickford, Essex, where Dr Walton was working as a GP, for a physical check up while he was having treatment elsewhere for anger and temper problems, in February 2004.

After Dr Walton’s warning about his health, he went to see him at the room in the church the next day.

Patient C said: “He got some oil and rubbed it into his hands and massaged me from my head to my toes.”

Asked how close to the groin area the massage went, patient C said it was “rather close” though the doctor did not touch the genital area.

The hearing continues.

Copyright © PA Business 2007

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