Expert witness claimed that a defendant had “intermittent explosive disorder,” GMC hears

A psychiatrist who told a jury that a defendant charged with murder had “intermittent explosive disorder” and had no intention of harming the victim faces charges at the General Medical Council of behaving in a reckless and misleading way as an expert witness.

Anantha Kumar, who was a consultant psychiatrist with South London and the Maudsley NHS Trust at the time, put forward the diagnosis without explaining that it was a controversial one, a GMC fitness to practise panel heard.

Dr Kumar took on the role of defence expert without disclosing that …