Tribunal suspends practice of doctor who hit wife with broom

A senior doctor has been barred from practice for nine months, after being found guilty of hitting his wife with a broom handle.

Police had arrested Dr Amjad Raja, 55, who attacked his wife of 18 years, Maria, with a plastic kitchen broom in September 2018, as she had “scolded” him for staying out all night with friends.

Maria had been further upset after she found a woman’s photo on his mobile phone when he arrived home by 6am.

Reports said the Raja, who ran a laser clinic in Manchester, struck her “at least twice, including once on the face” with the broom after a “breakfast time bust up”.

He had been “aggressively swinging” the broom around, and Maria’s thumb was injured in the attack.

The former research physician from Cheadle Hulme, near Stockport, also slammed her £500 phone on a wall.

Raja, a father of two, had been convicted of assault and criminal damage last year, and was ordered to not contact Maria for a year.

Though Raja claimed innocence, he reported about the case to General Medical Council.

Raja had initially held Maria responsible for the incident, claiming that she had “mental health issues”. He even argued that he had obtained her “permission” for the night-out.

On studying the case, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in Manchester, suspended Raja’s practise, allowing him to resume work after a review.

“There is a lack of evidence to demonstrate that Dr Raja has insight into his offending behaviour,” said the tribunal’s chairwoman, Emma Boothroyd.

“He continues to deny that he assaulted the family member or damaged the mobile phone.

“On the contrary, he has made unsupported allegations about the family member. He has provided the tribunal with no evidence of any reflection into his behaviour leading to his conviction, or of the impact his behaviour has on public confidence in him as a doctor and upon the profession as a whole.”

While the tribunal said it “considered his attitude to be self-serving”, a probation report concluded that Raja posed a “medium risk of harm within intimate relationships”.

Boothroyd added that the convictions were “serious”, but “they are not fundamentally incompatible with continued registration”.

“The behaviour is capable of remedy and with sufficient remediation and insight, the risk of repetition could be significantly reduced,” she said.

“Dr Raja is beginning to appreciate the concerns arising from his conviction and he proposed to take action to remediate those concerns in the future.”