Pinpointing the precise moment that Dr Andrea McFarlane’s relationship with an elderly female patient morphed into something inappropriate is not easy.
Perhaps it started when the twice-divorced GP began confiding in 87-year-old Mavis Barsby about her money worries. Or when the 55-year-old began bombarding Mavis with flowers, letters and poems referring to her as ‘my darling angel’ and ‘my most special friend’. Or when she accepted the first of many generous gifts from the retired headmistress.
Those gifts, which ranged from large lump sums of cash to a diamond ring, a silver bracelet and even a new cooker, amounted to a staggering £190,000 and wiped out Mavis’s life savings.
McFarlane, who practised at the Crown House Surgery in Retford in Nottinghamshire, was found guilty of professional misconduct and has now been banned for a year by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service.
Dr Andrea McFarlane with Mavis Barsby. The 55-year-old began bombarding Mavis with flowers, letters and poems referring to her as ‘my darling angel’ and ‘my most special friend’
The tribunal ruled that the doctor, who admitted accepting the money, had ‘indirectly encouraged’ Mavis, but it cleared McFarlane of being ‘predatory’ and of ‘influencing her’ into parting with her savings.
They found that Mavis had the capacity to make her own choices and accepted that a ‘special friendship’ had developed between the two.
However, Mavis’s family — who believe the GP should have been struck off — are demanding she returns the money desperately needed to pay for the severely ill pensioner’s care.
And the Mail can confirm, as the tribunal noted, that the disgraced doctor is still making visits to see Mavis at the £795-a-week Nottinghamshire care home where she has been receiving round-the-clock care since suffering a debilitating stroke in June 2017.
For, despite admitting to the tribunal that she should never have taken the money, McFarlane is adamant that the friendship is genuine and was never motivated by financial gain.
Mavis’s relatives have decided not to attempt to stop the brief monthly visits because Mavis, who has no children, is very frail, has suffered from dementia since her stroke and is unaware that her former doctor has been suspended.
‘It wouldn’t do any good,’ says John Hemstalk, 67, Mavis’s nephew and her lasting power of attorney. ‘My auntie is not aware of what’s going on. She is very, very poorly and my brother and I decided that it would be churlish to deprive her of visitors when she gets very few.’
Mr Hemstalk told the medical tribunal that his aunt’s massive cash gifts to McFarlane were only discovered in 2017 when he took over her financial affairs after her stroke. When he asked his aunt about it, Mavis denied having given McFarlane any money — possibly because she was afraid of getting the doctor into trouble.
McFarlane had previously warned her of such a possibility. Among the dozens of letters and cards she sent to Mavis over a decade is one from November 2008 in which the GP makes clear: ‘We simply need to be careful that those who do not understand that our friendship is quite apart from who your doctor is, do not then accuse me of taking advantage of your kindness.
‘I have simply grown to love you as a true and wonderful friend, which is quite apart from — and nothing to do with — me being your doctor.’
The tribunal heard that McFarlane suggested an ‘excellent solution’ to this ethical dilemma because ‘the GMC are very strict about these things’. She encouraged Mavis to switch to another female doctor at the Crown House Surgery and told her to falsely claim she was doing so on the grounds that McFarlane’s waiting times had become too long.
‘If anyone asks why you changed, you can explain, it is because I have gone “part-time” (though you know as well as I do that 50 hours plus a week of work is not part-time!!).
‘This would be the best compromise, it would make me feel so much more at ease, as I do not want to feel hindered in being your friend.’
Unfortunately, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service regarded this ‘compromise’ as an attempt ‘to conceal the nature of her relationship’ with Mavis who, they said, was vulnerable at the time.
Dr Andrea Mcfarlane practised at the Crown House Surgery in Retford in Nottinghamshire
Turn back the clock to 2004 when McFarlane first became Mavis’s GP and it is not immediately clear why the two women, who are separated by a 33-year age gap, should have become friends in the first place.
Andrea McFarlane was born Andrea Sigune Urania Lindenberg in Scotland in 1964 and was one of six children raised within a Camphill Community in Aberdeen.
Camphill, which was founded in Scotland in 1940 by a small group of refugees and has branches around the world, is based on the principles of ‘anthroposophy’ — a belief system created by the Austrian social and educational reformer Rudolf Steiner. It is dedicated to building communities ‘where everyone can find purpose and belonging’ and extols the virtues of living in extended families.
Andrea’s German father joined the community as a young man and her Swiss mother moved there as a teenager. She studied medicine at Aberdeen University and married in 1988 — a year before qualifying as a doctor. Later, she moved to Nottinghamshire in 1999 with her two sons after her divorce from her first husband — Ewan McFarlane — and married again in 2006, but left her second husband just a year into the marriage.
Mavis, meanwhile, was a farmer’s daughter born and raised in Retford and, as the youngest of four children, lived with her parents until she married delivery driver Cliff, nine years her senior, when she was 35.
She trained as a teacher and worked locally, becoming headmistress at a village infants’ school until taking early retirement at 55. She and Cliff, who died in 2012, were childless and spent much of their free time playing bowls or watching cricket and tennis.
Holidays were generally spent in the UK and aside from the odd trip to Wimbledon for the tennis or Trent Bridge for the cricket, the pair were careful with their money, investing small sums to make sure they were cared for later in life.
The bulk of McFarlane’s letters date from 2008, the tribunal heard, around the time she advised her patient to switch GPs so they could continue their friendship ‘unhindered’.
Written in highly emotive, gushing prose and filled with exclamation marks, they are a far cry from the brief notes you might find in a doctor’s records.
The earlier letters also refer to Mavis’s husband Cliff, making clear he was aware of his wife’s relationship with the doctor.
In the letter of November 2008 in which she advises that Mavis switches doctors, she tells her: ‘Chat to Cliff about it and reassure him, above all, that . . . he can call me at home or on my mobile or at work, any time at all if he is ever again worried about you.’
It is not known if he was aware of the cash gifts, the bulk of which were given after his death.
Dr Andrea McFarlane leaving the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in Manchester
In the November 2008 letter, she writes: ‘Your humour, your intelligent quick mind, your positive and strong attitude, (both you and Cliff), your kindness, your heart as big as a bucket (in fact, bigger!), your fun and gentle being, all that I admire and adore and I do so treasure our friendship, not just because you spoil me beyond any words, but because with all this, you are you, quite an incredible and fantastic lady! I have often said, I would like to be like you! I shall aspire to that!’
The most disturbing content revealed during the tribunal relates to the gifts McFarlane received.
She continues: ‘Thank you also for all the other goodies and help towards all that life needs sorting. My new tyres, my new locks, fixing my computer, the car service, the gutters needed fixing, the electrician needed to fix the lights, the petrol to rugby matches and so much more.’
In another letter, dated January 2009, McFarlane writes that she has spent the ‘generous inclusions’ from Mavis’s Christmas card on car breakdown cover and ‘a little of what you have given’ towards a trip to London to visit her nieces.
She adds: ‘As for my birthday, I do know of a beautiful thing I have wanted for many years, but never would have dreamed of buying for myself, an Ortak silver bracelet I adore. I promise to get that from you for this rather wonderful birthday of mine on the 4th, to wear when I am not at work and when you see it, you will agree it is quite special.’
In March 2009, she writes: ‘I am still waiting for my beautiful new cooker, it is taking time in getting to me, but there we are, we can manage meantime (sic). I am so grateful to you, as without your help, I would not have managed to get one without great difficulty.’
At the same time as receiving these gifts, the doctor enjoyed 20 foreign holidays between 2008 and 2014, including an Amazon cruise, a skiing holiday in Italy and a trip to the Grand Canyon, sending Mavis postcards from around the world despite complaining of money worries.
Above all, the letters reveal how intense this secretive relationship became and how quickly the women’s roles appear to have reversed so childless Mavis was taking care of McFarlane’s financial and emotional needs, almost as if she was her own daughter.
Meanwhile, Mavis’s health was deteriorating and when she suffered a debilitating stroke in June 2017, she was the one who urgently needed care — and the money to pay for it.
While going through her paperwork, her nephew John, a retired salesman, noticed that shortly after her husband Cliff’s death in 2012, an investment worth £83,000 had matured, an amount the couple had intended to help them in their old age.
But between December 2012 and January 2013 cheques totalling £98,000 had been paid out to McFarlane, the first for £73,000 and the second for £25,000. In addition to the cheques, multiple payments saw a total of £188,000 handed over.
John Hemstalk, 67, Mavis’s nephew and her lasting power of attorney, said: ‘My auntie is not aware of what’s going on. She is very, very poorly…’
She also gave McFarlane a gold ring studded with three diamonds, something the doctor described as ‘her inheritance to me’ and, when she could no longer drive, gave her Toyota Auris car, which was worth £7,000, to McFarlane’s sister.
By the time she had her stroke, the tribunal heard, Mavis was left with just £2,000 in her account.
‘I couldn’t believe my eyes,’ says John, who contacted the GMC about his concerns.
What particularly upset him, he says, is that both Mavis and Cliff were always so careful with money.
‘They were thrifty people,’ he says. ‘I found tins of fruits that were bursting they’d been in storage so long. The furniture and curtains were threadbare. The cutlery was fifty years old. The oven door was falling off. She didn’t spend anything on herself.’
After John contacted the GMC, McFarlane was reportedly investigated by police over claims she received money from two other people. However there was insufficient evidence to proceed.
She initially claimed she thought some of the money she received from Mavis was part of her divorce settlement from her second husband, Sean Robb. Later, she told the tribunal the money was to help her pay off hundreds of thousands of pounds of debt.
John Hemstalk pictured with letters of thanks and postcards
Mr Robb told the Mail this week detectives had visited him to question him about his ex-wife but said he was unaware she had any debts and that nothing was disclosed during their protracted divorce.
‘She has never contacted me asking for help with finances,’ he said. ‘She was beautiful, intelligent and caring. That was just her and she was a bit soft with it. She’s not an underhand sort of person. It’s probably that she has got into something she didn’t know she was getting into.’
Businessman Mr Robb also said that after they split, his wife lived for a time with a 75-year-old man who was the widower of one of her patients who had died. ‘I thought it was a bit strange,’ he said. ‘She “doctored” his wife and moved in with him. It was a few years ago.’
Had McFarlane been found guilty of grooming her patient, she would in all likelihood have been struck off and faced criminal charges. However the professional panel found no evidence ‘that Dr McFarlane actively solicited monies or gifts’. The report concluded Mavis ‘considered Dr McFarlane as extended family and was happy to help her’ even if she was vulnerable and the gifts were inappropriate.
Giving evidence before the tribunal in December, McFarlane claimed she had been £250,000 in debt and that both Mavis and her husband ‘wanted me to be a better mother and stay more at home’. She said the couple regarded her as ‘their extended family’ and offered to help.
She produced copies of letters she had received from the pensioner in which Mavis refers to McFarlane as ‘my dearest St Andrea’ or ‘my darling saintly friend’ and signs off as ‘your angel’.
‘I regard myself as the luckiest girl in the world. To be called an Angel is superb,’ she wrote in September 2009. And another from May 2011: ‘It was so delightful to have two sessions in the last six days with so many hugs.’
But John says: ‘Any decent doctor would have said no and informed the family that their vulnerable elderly patient was trying to give their life savings away.’
Despite the tribunal’s decision to suspend McFarlane for serious misconduct rather than strike her off, he believes McFarlane’s ‘sickly sweet’ letters amount to grooming — saying that the one-year ban she received is an ‘insult’.
His solicitor has now written to the doctor, who lives in a rented house in the grounds of Babworth Hall in Nottinghamshire, asking her to return the money. If she refuses, the family intend to sue her. McFarlane has offered to give back the diamond ring. The family say they are still waiting for it to be returned.
What upsets John most is that he had to sell Mavis’s £200,000 three-bedroom bungalow to pay for her care when the cash she gave away might have covered the cost of making modifications so she could be looked after at home.
‘She didn’t want me to sell her house but I had no other choice,’ he says. ‘I can’t bring myself to tell her I’ve done it, to be honest.
‘I’m so angry about what’s happened. It’s not fair that my auntie, who worked hard and saved all her life, should be in this position in her final years.’