A DOCTOR has suddenly left his surgery after being rapped for dishonestly claiming a fellow GP was unfit to attend a misconduct hearing.

Dr Oluremi Akin Agbaje left the Robert Frew Medical Centre in Wickford, where he was a senior partner, without any explanation to patients.

The medical centre’s website, last updated on October 17, says the practice name has changed to exclude Dr Agbaje’s name.

It adds that he “is currently not available to see patients”.

A former patient, who asked not to be named, said: “The first I saw was when his name was removed from a letterhead last week.”

An Echo investigation has discovered the departure followed an official General Medical Council warning.

Dr Agbaje was found guilty of misconduct for helping disgraced Wickford GP Anthony Walton avoid attending a fitness to practice panel in October 2007 to “spare his embarrassment”.

Dr Walton, who was based at the London Road surgery and ran an evangelical church in The Broadway, Wickford, was struck off in October 2007 for a string of offences including inappropriately massaging male patients, downloading gay porn and wrongly prescribing drugs.

Dr Walton did not attend his own hearing after concerns about his mental health were raised by Dr Agbaje.

A separate fitness to practice panel hearing in June concluded Dr Agbaje acted outside his competence by giving an unqualified assessment of Dr Walton’s mental health.

He wrote a report to the 2007 hearing claiming Dr Walton was suicidal numerous times, the hearing was detrimental to his health and he was not fit mentally to attend. He reaffirmed these claims at the hearing.

The new panel heard Dr Agbaje, who was treating Dr Walton in the run-up to his hearing, prescribed him drugs for anxiety. However, he logged nothing in the South African GP’s notes about deteriorating mental state, that he was suicidal and unable to attend or alleged anxious telephone calls from Dr Walton.

The panel concluded there was no clinical evidence to support the claims and that an assessment of mental capacity was outside Dr Agbaje’s remit. It said he had acted in “bad faith and dishonestly” by claiming he was suicidal numerous times.

However, the panel cleared him of any reckless behaviour and said there was no personal gain.

Although it found him guilty of “misconduct”, it said he did not bring the profession into disrepute and the warning – on record for five years – was sufficient.

No one at the practice would comment yesterday.

Dr Agbaje still works for South West Essex Primary Care Trust. He was unavailable to comment.

Spokeswoman Amanda Barlow said: “The warning does not affect Dr Agbaje’s registration. He is currently a locum.”