The psychiatrist and media figure Raj Persaud has been suspended from practice for three months after a General Medical Council disciplinary panel found that he had brought the profession into disrepute with repeated acts of plagiarism.

Dr Persaud, who became famous through regular television appearances on ITV’s This Morning with Richard and Judy in the 1990s and later presented BBC Radio 4’s All in the Mind programme, admitted at the outset of his hearing that he had copied the words of several academics and authors in newspaper and journal articles and in his 2003 book From the Edge of the Couch.

Dr Persaud denied dishonesty, however, telling the GMC panel: “At the time, given the stress I was under, given …