Sayed Talibi
Introduction
Dr Sayed Talibi is a British doctor and neurosurgery registrar from Tamworth, Staffordshire, who was erased from the General Medical Council (GMC) register — struck off — with immediate effect on 8 August 2025. A Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) tribunal found his fitness to practise impaired after determining that a series of serious charges were proved: assaulting a woman, threatening her with waterboarding, making racist or derogatory statements, uploading a photograph of a patient’s exposed brain to his dating profile, posing with weapons, illegally recording his own court hearing, and a string of theft and dishonesty matters. The case drew national attention because of the surgical photograph — taken during live brain surgery and posted without the patient’s permission to a dating website — but the tribunal’s findings ranged far beyond a single lapse of judgement.
Background Information
Talibi qualified in 2012 with a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MB ChB) and completed his foundation medical training at the Queen Elizabeth, University Hospitals Birmingham, and at Royal Stoke University Hospital. He obtained a neurosurgery training number in early 2015 and began as a specialty training registrar at University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) in August 2015, completing his Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh (MRCS Ed) in March 2016. He undertook further training at the Queen Elizabeth until February 2021, moved back to UHCW that month, took a career break in February 2022, and returned to his training position in August 2024, resuming full clinical responsibilities after a staggered return to work. His GMC registration number is 7280771.
The regulator’s involvement began, unusually, with Talibi himself: he self-referred to the GMC on 26 October 2017, stating that a woman identified as Ms X had made serious but “totally unfounded” allegations against him which had resulted in a police investigation, and that the relationship had ended because of her “unacceptable aggressive behaviour”. In July 2018, police disclosed to the GMC that he had in fact been arrested two days before that self-referral, on suspicion of coercive and controlling behaviour and three allegations of rape. A number of his electronic devices were seized during the investigation and found to contain images, photographs and documents which were disclosed to the GMC.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Adjudicated vs. alleged. The matters below are the MPTS tribunal’s civil-standard regulatory findings — not criminal convictions. Separately, police disclosed in July 2018 that Talibi had been arrested on suspicion of coercive and controlling behaviour and three allegations of rape; an arrest is not a conviction, and no conviction appears in the record. He is presumed innocent of any criminal offence, and the tribunal’s erasure decision rests on its own fitness-to-practise findings.
The tribunal found that between 2016 and 2017 Talibi behaved in a threatening or abusive manner towards a woman, including stating that he would subject her to waterboarding, and physically assaulted her. It found that he “intentionally penetrated the woman without her consent” in 2017, and that he contacted her in 2018 in breach of a non-molestation order.
The finding that attracted the widest publicity concerned his dating profile: in September 2017 he uploaded to a dating website a picture of himself performing brain surgery, which included the exposed brain of the patient, without the patient’s permission. The tribunal also found he had made racist or derogatory statements between January 2016 and August 2017, including “I hate Afghan culture” and “I hate kuffar [non-Muslims] and white people” or similar; had posed for photographs between 2007 and 2017 while holding guns, knives and an axe on more than one occasion; and had downloaded and/or viewed video footage of beheadings and killings and an image of a waterboarding device.
Completing the schedule of findings, the tribunal concluded that in January 2017 he illegally recorded his own hearing at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court, where he was due to be sentenced for driving offences; that he stole £23.50 worth of milk powder from a branch of Asda in Tamworth in May 2017; and that he provided false information to his energy provider over a £770 energy bill in June 2017. The electronic devices seized by police supplied much of the underlying material, their contents having been disclosed to the GMC during the investigation.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The tribunal, sitting from 6 to 8 August 2025, determined that Talibi’s fitness to practise was impaired and directed that his name be erased from the medical register, effective immediately — the most serious sanction available to it. Panel chairman Andrew Lewis said Talibi’s conduct was “fundamentally incompatible with his continued registration”, writing that the tribunal “concluded that erasure was the only sanction that it could impose given the seriousness of the misconduct, the lack of insight and remediation shown, and the risk of repetition that remained”. He added that allowing Talibi to return to “unrestricted practice” would be inconsistent with the findings because of the seriousness of the misconduct. Talibi had 28 days to lodge an appeal, and the determination record indicates that an appeal was lodged; its outcome is not recorded in the published sources.
Current Status
Talibi is struck off the GMC register, the erasure having taken effect immediately upon the tribunal’s decision of 8 August 2025. He was given 28 days to lodge an appeal, and per the determination record an appeal was lodged; the outcome of that appeal does not appear in the available sources, and the record directs readers to check the official register for the practitioner’s current registration status. No suspension, conditions or undertakings apply in place of the erasure: the tribunal’s direction was removal from the register itself.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Erasure ends Talibi’s ability to work as a doctor in the United Kingdom, since removal from the register means he can no longer practise as a registered medical practitioner. The sanction cut short a neurosurgical career that had spanned the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, Royal Stoke University Hospital and UHCW Coventry: he had returned to his training position in August 2024, only to be struck off a year later. The tribunal’s reasoning — the seriousness of the misconduct, the lack of insight and remediation shown, and the risk of repetition that remained — left no lesser sanction available.