Stephen Doohan

Introduction

Stephen Doohan is a former paramedic who was struck off the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) register in April 2026 after a Conduct and Competence Committee panel found his fitness to practise impaired by reason of conviction. On 16 May 2025, at the High Court in Glasgow, Doohan was convicted of assaults on his partner, who was pregnant at the time, committed in Edinburgh over two dates in March 2023: sexually assaulting her and administering misoprostol, a medication that can induce abortion, with intent to cause her to abort, causing her to abort. The panel concluded that the serious nature of his offending was fundamentally incompatible with continued practice as a paramedic, noted his lack of insight and refusal to engage, and made a Striking Off Order.

Background Information

Doohan was registered with the HCPC as a paramedic, a regulated profession whose registrants treat patients at their most vulnerable. His criminal case was prosecuted in Scotland: the conviction was returned by a jury at the High Court in Glasgow, the country’s most serious trial court, on 16 May 2025. The charges concerned two occasions in March 2023 in Edinburgh, when his partner was pregnant. The sexual offences were charged contrary to Sections 2 and 3 of the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009, covering sexual assault and assault with intent to ravish, alongside common-law assault, with the indictment recording that he penetrated her vagina with a syringe or similar implement containing misoprostol and on a second occasion deposited misoprostol into her vagina with intent to cause her to abort, and did cause her to abort. Her identity is anonymised in the published regulatory record.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Adjudicated: convicted, then struck off. The conviction at the High Court in Glasgow on 16 May 2025 is a matter of criminal court record. The striking off order of April 2026 is the HCPC’s separate regulatory consequence, determined on the civil standard; the panel made no new criminal findings.

The HCPC case contained two particulars: the conviction itself, and impairment of fitness to practise by reason of it. The final hearing was held virtually over two days, 1 and 2 April 2026. Doohan did not engage with the proceedings. The panel, weighing the conviction, found that he lacked insight and that his lack of engagement with the proceedings indicated he was unwilling to resolve matters. It placed the case within the sanctions-policy category of offending so grave that any lesser sanction would be insufficient to protect the public, public confidence in the profession, and public confidence in the regulatory process — the category covering registrants who lack insight, continue to repeat misconduct, or are unwilling to resolve matters. The panel was, in its words recorded in the decision, in no doubt that “the serious nature of the Registrant’s offending was fundamentally incompatible with continued practice as a Paramedic.” It concluded that the only appropriate and proportionate order was a Striking Off Order.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The panel directed the Registrar to strike Doohan from the register. An interim order had been in place since January 2024, restricting his practice from long before the criminal case concluded, and it continued to cover the window of the striking off decision and any appeal. The conviction, involving the clandestine administration of an abortion-inducing drug to a pregnant partner, is among the gravest categories of offence a registered clinician can attract, and the panel’s sanction reasoning treated it as beyond remediation without his engagement. The published decision quotes the indictment’s wording with the victim anonymised and the address redacted. No separate civil claim or professional testimony from the victim features in the regulatory record; the conviction alone carried the case.

Current Status

Doohan was struck off on 2 April 2026. He is no longer a registered paramedic and cannot practise under the protected title while the striking off order stands. The criminal conviction stands from May 2025, and the regulatory order followed within a year of it. The published record contains no mitigation, no expression of remorse and no rehabilitative steps, reflecting his complete non-engagement. The victim is not named in the HCPC materials, consistent with the anonymisation in the indictment. Any restoration application would face the combination of a conviction for serious sexual and violent offending and a documented finding that he was unwilling to resolve matters with his regulator.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The striking off is terminal for his clinical career while the order stands, and the nature of the offending places him among the small group of paramedics removed for convictions against their own partners rather than patients. The case demonstrates the conviction pathway operating at its heaviest: no fact-finding hearing on the conduct was needed, the jury’s verdict did that work, and the panel’s task was confined to insight, engagement and sanction. It also shows the interim-order machinery holding a restriction in place from January 2024 — more than a year before conviction — so that he never practised unrestricted while the criminal process ran. For the ambulance profession, it records the regulator’s position that offending of this gravity against a pregnant partner is categorically incompatible with the trust paramedic registration certifies.

Sources

• HCPTS, “Stephen Doohan — Final Hearing, Conduct and Competence Committee, Struck off,” April 2026. source