Bogus psychiatrist had them all fooled

Barian Baluchi (43), a former minicab driver and immigrant from Iran, earned at least £1.5m in fees from private patients after acquiring a fake identity as a doctor in 1998. Baluchi’s facade as a professor in psychiatry came from stealing a sequence of other people\'s identities. The General Medical Council even allowed him to gain full membership of the medical register by changing his name twice in less than a year to assume other doctors\' qualifications. The council, reports The Guardian, let this happen in spite of a direct warning from one of the doctors whose identity was being stolen, Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court in London was told. The deception allowed him to build up a clientele of more than 2 000 patients at his private clinic and become an expert witness at immigration appeals tribunals, specialising in reports on the psychiatric condition of asylum seekers. Full report in The Guardian