Saheb Peer Shabaz Khalander

Introduction

Dr Saheb Peer Shabaz Khalander is a former UK doctor whose name was erased from the medical register — struck off — by a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) tribunal on 27 January 2026, at the close of a substantive hearing that had run from 1 December 2025. He worked as a clinical specialist in the Emergency Department, and the case against him arose not from his clinical care but from his conduct towards a colleague: on 31 May 2022, a junior colleague, referred to in the determination as Ms A, approached him for advice on patient care, and he touched her thigh in a sexually motivated manner. Erasure is the most serious sanction available to the regulator. It removes a practitioner from the register entirely, meaning he is no longer permitted to practise medicine in the United Kingdom, and it is otherwise indefinite, though it can be reviewed after a minimum of five years.

Background Information

Khalander was registered with the General Medical Council, identified in the determination by registration number 7708739, and worked as a clinical specialist in the Emergency Department. The published determination records little of his wider career or personal history; as in many fitness to practise cases, the narrative centres on a single encounter and on the tribunal’s assessment of it. On 31 May 2022, Ms A — a colleague junior to him — approached him for advice on patient care. That ordinary, collaborative interaction, of exactly the kind an emergency department depends on, became the occasion of the conduct that ended his career, and of the fitness to practise proceedings that culminated in the hearing of December 2025 to January 2026.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Allegations vs. findings. No criminal proceedings are recorded in the determination. The findings are regulatory findings by an MPTS tribunal on the civil standard (the balance of probabilities) and are not criminal convictions. The determination also records no denial or mitigation narrative from Khalander himself, and its conclusions on insight and remediation reflect that absence of engagement; nothing here should be read as asserting a defence he did not advance.

The allegations were that, on 31 May 2022, while working as a clinical specialist in the Emergency Department, Khalander inappropriately touched the thigh of Ms A, a junior colleague, when she approached him for advice on patient care; that his actions constituted sexual harassment under section 26(2) of the Equality Act 2010; that his conduct was sexually motivated; and that it amounted to an abuse of his more senior position. The tribunal found all of these matters proved.

The tribunal’s account of the physical circumstances is stark. It found that he had acted opportunistically, exploiting an opportunity to touch Ms A precisely when she had come to him for advice. He moved close to her, trapping her legs between his legs and a filing cabinet, positioned so that his actions could not be seen. The concealment was not incidental: the tribunal treated the trapping and the positioning out of sight as an aggravating feature of what he did — conduct carried out on a colleague junior to him, who had sought his clinical input and, held in place as she was, had little means of moving away.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The tribunal placed the misconduct at the high end of the spectrum of seriousness. Among the aggravating features it identified were that Khalander acted opportunistically by exploiting an opportunity to touch Ms A when she had come to him for advice; that he moved close to her and trapped her legs between his legs and a filing cabinet where his actions could not be seen; and that his actions undermined collaborative working and led to a direct risk to patient safety. That last point bears emphasis: the tribunal regarded conduct of this kind as corrosive of the working relationships on which emergency care depends, with consequences reaching beyond the colleague directly affected to the patients the department treats.

On the other side of the ledger there was, in the determination, very little. The tribunal found that Khalander had demonstrated no meaningful insight or remediation. It concluded that erasure was the only proportionate sanction, directed that his name be erased from the medical register, and imposed an immediate order so that the erasure took effect at once rather than after any appeal period had run.

Current Status

Khalander is struck off the GMC register. The tribunal’s decision of 27 January 2026, at the end of a substantive hearing that had run from 1 December 2025, took the form of erasure with an immediate order. Erasure is otherwise indefinite: it removes him from the register, and he is no longer permitted to practise medicine in the United Kingdom. It can be reviewed after a minimum of five years, but until any such review succeeds he remains removed from practice. No criminal proceedings are recorded in the determination; the outcome recorded is the regulatory one.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The erasure ends Khalander’s career as a doctor in the United Kingdom. Removed from the register, he is no longer permitted to practise, and because the tribunal judged that he had shown no meaningful insight or remediation, and that erasure was the only proportionate sanction, the removal was made immediate rather than delayed. The findings also carry a weight beyond the register: a finding of sexually motivated touching of a junior colleague, placed at the high end of the spectrum of seriousness, follows him into any future professional context, medical or otherwise. Any application to return to the register can be considered only after the five-year minimum review period has elapsed, and the tribunal’s conclusions on insight and remediation would stand as the record from which any future panel would start.

Sources

• MedicWatch, “Saheb Peer Shabaz Khalander — Struck off the register · 27 January 2026”, 27 January 2026.source