Silverstone doctor slapped woman's bottom in 'one-off error'

Dr Andrew Lim volunteered at Silverstone on weekends

A doctor who slapped a colleague on the bottom at Silverstone should not be punished any further for the "isolated error of judgement", a tribunal found.

Dr Andrew Lim was part of the volunteer medical team at the World Endurance Championship at the Northamptonshire racetrack in April 2017.

A Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service panel said a "formal warning was not necessary".

Dr Lim was already cleared of sexual assault at a criminal trial in 2021.

Panel chair Christina Moller said: "A well-informed and reasonable member of the public would not consider Dr Lim's fitness to practise to be currently impaired by reason of this one-off error six years ago in a long, otherwise unblemished, career."

'Well-meaning banter'

Dr Lim qualified at the former Middlesex Hospital in London and practised at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, Somerset.

He was the deputy chief medical officer at the Castle Combe circuit in Wiltshire, but volunteered at Silverstone on weekends.

He told the panel he "flicked" the same woman's bottom playfully at previous events in 2015 and 2016, but the colleague said she had no memory of that.

Other witnesses described a culture of "well-meaning banter" in the team and that colleagues "all know how far this [could] be taken".

'Carte blanche'

The woman accepted she was "acting jokily" with Dr Lim at the time in April 2017, and pretended to close a door on him before he slapped her, but she complained after the incident.

He maintained the slap was not sexually motivated, and if he touched her anywhere other than her bottom it was accidental, and he wrote a letter of apology to the woman.

Dr Lim resigned from his voluntary role at Silverstone and other motor racing venues, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

In its conclusions, the panel said any previous incidents between the pair did not give Dr Lim "carte blanche to slap her when larking about".

The panel said the woman's complaint of being slapped was found proved - and amounted to misconduct - but her complaint of being groped was not proved.

The tribunal concluded Dr Lim's fitness to practise as a registered doctor was not impaired, and he was not sanctioned, for what it described as a "one-off error…in a long, otherwise unblemished, career".

He was found not guilty of one count of sexual assault by a trial jury at Northampton Crown Court in June 2021.