Daily Mail
May 24, 2014
A European court has upheld a decision not to extradite a bungling German doctor to the UK over the death of a pensioner from a drugs overdose.
A coroner’s inquest in the UK ruled that David Gray, 70, was unlawfully killed in 2008 after ‘incompetent’ Dr Daniel Ubani, who was working as an out of hours locum, fatally administered 10 times the normal dose of diamorphine.
The family of Mr Gray, of Manea, Cambridgeshire, have been campaigning for Dr Ubani to face charges in the UK over the death but this has been rejected by German authorities.
The European Court of Human Rights today backed a German investigation into his actions and a decision he should not be sent back to Britain.
Speaking on Sky News, Mr Gray’s son Stuart, of Kidderminster, Worcestershire, said he was ‘bitterly, bitterly disappointed’ by the decision.
He added: ‘I think it’s got wider ramifications in the UK because it means people can come over from the European Union and not answer to UK law.
‘We need to digest this and go back to our lawyers and see if we can lodge an appeal or not. He’s still licensed to practice out there, we don’t know what he’s doing.’
Mr Gray’s other son Rory, who lives in Germany, said: ‘German authorities convicted him of a minor misdemeanour, there was no hearing, no trial and Ubani never answered for what he’s done.
‘This is a green light for charlatans to go to other countries and do whatever they like.’
The Strasbourg court ruled: ‘The patient’s sons complained that the authorities in Germany, where the doctor was tried and convicted of having caused the death by negligence, had not provided for an effective investigation into their father’s death.
‘The court accepted that the German trial court had sufficient evidence available to it for the doctor’s conviction by penal order without having held a hearing.