Doctor with police force kept mercy killing secret from bosses

Dr Marcos Arel Hourmann worked for Dyfed Powys Police for more than two years despite being under investigation and subsequently convicted of manslaughter in Spain, the General Medical Council (GMC) has heard.

He injected a cancer-riddled patient already at death’s door to “rid her of the unbearable suffering” and end her life while working at a hospital in Spain in 2005, the GMC was told.

Within a year, Dr Hourmann, 52, had come to the UK and started to work for the West Suffolk NHS Trust before getting another job with Carmarthenshire NHS Trust and going to work for the police as a forensic medical examiner.

But he failed to tell any of his new employers about the continuing police investigation in Spain or the subsequent court case.

Yesterday a fitness to practise panel of the GMC, sitting in Manchester, found that Dr Hourmann, who was not represented or present, acted dishonestly.

The panel will now have to consider whether his actions amount to misconduct and, if so, whether he should face punishment, such as being struck off.

In a letter to the panel, Dr Hourmann said he was unfamiliar with medical rules that state if a doctor has been cautioned, charged or convicted of a criminal offence, anywhere in the world, they must declare this to the profession’s regulatory body – ie the GMC.

The doctor also told the panel in writing that he was “afraid” to lose his freedom and his job.

The medic, who qualified as a doctor in Argentina and now lives in Spain, is suspended from working as a doctor by the GMC.

Earlier the GMC heard that on March 28, 2005, Dr Hourmann was working at the Mora D’Ebre district hospital in Tarragona, Spain, when an 82-year-old “extremely ill” cancer patient, referred to only as CR, was admitted.

The patient had advanced cancer of the colon and internal haemorrhaging and her family consented to her treatment by Dr Hourmann for “sedative and palliative” care.

When the patient became unconscious he injected her with 60mg of potassium chloride, a lethal dose.

Spanish court papers said the patient was “begging for her suffering to be brought to an end” and Dr Hourmann may have thought, incorrectly, “she was begging him to end her life”, the GMC heard.

It took four years for the case to be resolved in Spain, when Dr Hourmann was convicted at the provincial high court in Tarragona under Spanish law of “involuntary manslaughter” and “attempting to co-operate in the suicide of a seriously ill person whose death is imminent”.

He was sentenced to one year in jail, which was suspended, and a further sentence of four months, 15 days jail, substituted by him paying a fine of 1,620 euros (£1,359).

The hearing continues.