THE boss of a celebrity rehab clinic dubbed the "Showbiz Alcatraz" has been kicked out of the profession over his "flagrant disregard" for patient safety.
Brendan Quinn, 38, managed the £10,000-a-week Causeway Retreat on Osea Island, Maldon, which boasted Take That's Mark Owen and Amy Winehouse as clients.
Advertising for the retreat named Quinn as one of Britain's 250 best private doctors, but he was not qualified, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) heard.
Quinn was boss and a major shareholder of the facility's operator, Twenty 7 Management, which rented the Edwardian manor. The Causeway, which charged a minimum £5,000 per week, was never registered as an independent hospital with the Care Quality Commission, but patients with mental health problems were still admitted, the hearing heard.
Quinn failed to tell employees they were working illegally in an unlicensed hospital and the clinic did not have a doctor on site at all times. While Quinn was in charge, medication was administered by unqualified staff without valid prescriptions and drugs were stored in a suitcase in an unlocked room.
NMC panel chairman James Spencer told him: "Your acts and omissions could foreseeably have caused significant harm to patients.
"You consistently placed your own commercial needs above those of highly vulnerable patients.
"You not only deceived the public as to your correct qualifications, by holding yourself out as a doctor, you also deceived those involved in ensuring correct registration of services as to the exact nature of the services provided at the Causeway."
The hearing began in 2012 and has been adjourned at least five times, having run for more than 90 days, costing the taxpayer more than £300,000.
Announcing the decision to strike Quinn off, Mr Spencer said there was no doubt his conduct had put patients at "unwarranted risk of harm".
He told Quinn: "You allowed particularly vulnerable patients to be admitted into an unregistered and unsafe environment, you failed to ensure that the Causeway was capable of providing adequate and appropriate care to patients through your failure to establish and maintain appropriate arrangements for the management of medication and your failure to ensure adequate staffing levels.
"Throughout the period of the charges, you demonstrated a flagrant disregard for patient safety. The panel was also satisfied that your misconduct brought the reputation of the profession into disrepute."
He added the NMC had no choice but to strike Quinn off as the public's trust and confidence in the profession, and the NMC as a regulatory body, would be significantly undermined if they did not.
Quinn, of Lewes, East Sussex, denied all the allegations against him, insisting former staff members had cooked up elaborate stories to ruin his reputation. He said: "They have been determined to absolutely destroy my career and indeed they've done an absolutely superb job."
He said he had been bombarded with anonymous texts from pay-as-you go phones threatening him and his family, but the panel dismissed his claims of conspiracy, saying it "lacks credibility".
Quinn was cleared of a series of charges, including claims that he allowed a female client to solicit sex for cash. Allegations that he told a staff member to remove a client's prosthetic leg to stop him wandering about were also unproven. He was also cleared of allegations that clients had access to kitchen knives and ropes and that boats bringing clients to the island were not equipped with enough life jackets.
The Causeway was shut down after an investigation and Twenty 7 Management was fined £8,000 for running an unlicensed hospital at Chelmsford Magistrates' Court in November 2010. District Judge David Cooper described the company as "atrocious" and said "its standards would really shame a third-world country".
Quinn has 28 days to appeal the panel's decision before he is struck off.
