Medical tribunal of former Team Sky and British Cycling medic Freeman set to drag into third year

The seemingly never-ending medical tribunal of Richard Freeman will drag into a third year after yet another delay.

On Wednesday, a fresh adjournment marked the latest setback to the drawn out hearing which was expected to conclude two months after it began in February 2019.

It had been expected that both the General Medical Council, which has brought the long-running fit-to-practise case, and Freeman’s barrister would conclude their arguments on Wednesday.

Dr Richard Freeman’s medical tribunal is scheduled to recommence on February 6

However, thanks to ‘unforeseen circumstances not related to Dr Freeman’, the saga continues, after Tuesday and Wednesday’s sessions were wiped out.

Instead, the Medical Practitioners’ Tribunal Service has confirmed that the Manchester hearing will reconvene on February 6 — two years after it began — and will also sit on February 12 before a verdict which is expected on March 2. Closing submissions from Mary O’Rourke QC, on behalf of Freeman, are still to be heard.

Freeman has admitted 18 of 22 charges against him, including that he ordered banned Testogel to the Manchester Velodrome home of both organisations in 2011. He also admits abusing his position to mastermind a botched cover-up in which he convinced a worker at Oldham-based Fit4Sport to send a false email to cover his tracks.

However, the former Bolton Wanderers doctor denies that he ordered 30 sachets of the substance ‘knowing or believing it was to be used by an athlete to improve performance’.

Instead, he claims he was bullied into ordering the testosterone by former coach Shane Sutton to treat his alleged erectile dysfunction. Sutton vehemently denies the claims and made the point to the hearing in an explosive session.

Simon Jackson QC, on behalf of the GMC, said on Monday that the ‘inextricable conclusion’ was that Freeman had ordered the sachets to dope a rider.