The General Medical Council has been forced to disclose documents it tried to keep secret about its handling of a case involving a lay panel member who was banned from hearing professional conduct cases after failing to disclose the extent of his links with the Church of Scientology.

The UK regulator has written to around 70 doctors to tell them that Christopher Brightmore, one of the panel members who sat on their cases, had his contract as a panellist terminated in 2004. The Citizens Commission for Human Rights, founded by the church, campaigns against “the seduction and contamination of medicine by psychiatrists.”

The GMC says that a review of Mr Brightmore’s cases by external solicitors, supported …