A HARPENDEN doctor, who was suspended from work after being diagnosed as manic depressive, appealed against his exile at the Privy Council in London this month.

Dr Anthony Hall, 64, of Manland Avenue, who does regular voluntary work in the town and is married with three children, claims he was wrongly diagnosed.

The former president of the Harpenden Dolphin's Cricket Club was suspended from his job on health grounds by the General Medical Council (GMC) in February last year.

Dr Hall said: "I am not manic depressive, I am just a normal bloke who has been misdiagnosed.

"I am a good husband, father, neighbour and gracious chauffeur, driving old people to hospitals, clinics and shops for Harpenden Helping Hand."

After retiring from his job at the Hospital of Tropical Diseases in London in 1994, where he had worked since 1975, the doctor spent the next five years undertaking 33 locums as a consultant physician.

However, on a visit to check he was fit to donate blood in 1999, a GP diagnosed him with manic depression, although Dr Hall claims: "I had hardly ever seen him before and he certainly did not know me well enough to make the diagnosis."

Eight days later, he was arrested by two policemen, accompanied by his GP, a consultant psychiatrist, and a social worker, and incarcerated in a mental health ward against his will for 18 days.

Dr Hall said he was unable to look after his "very frail 90-year-old father" during the time he was at St Julian's Ward in St Albans City Hospital.

He was told he would not be discharged unless he took Lithium, so he took it until he was released but then stopped, describing it as "a dangerous drug" when taken inappropriately.

Dr Hall has worked as a newspaper deliverer and supermarket shelf-stacker at Sainsbury's during his suspension.

He admits to suffering an intermittent bout of depression between 1994 and 1996, when he worried about his finances, but insists it lifted and he was never manic.

Symptoms of manic depression include agitation, anti-social behaviour, mood swings, grandiose delusions, irritability, an abnormal sex drive and thought disorders, all of which Dr Hall denies having.

However, Dr Geraldine O'Sullivan, a consultant psychiatrist at Albany Lodge in Church Crescent, St Albans, is adamant that Dr Hall was suffering from a personality disorder.

She helped put together a report for the GMC which led to the renewal of his suspension this year.

In a letter to Dr Hall's new GP, she said: "...he does suffer from bi-polar mood disorder for which he needs monitoring by the psychiatric services and he should agree to take a mood stabiliser."

But Dr Hall said: "My wife Marva agreed that I have had no symptoms since the end of 1995 and am an active, happy person, enjoying housework, gardening, acting as her secretary and community work."

It was claimed the doctor had "grandiose delusions", after he sent a letter to the Queen's secretary suggesting his hero Royal Air Force Captain John Cunningham be awarded an Order of Merit.

As a former medal-winning US army chief physician in Vietnam, Dr Hall spent 1997 at the Ministry of Defence, where he examined Gulf War veterans.

The law lords reserved their decision to a future date.

October 24, 2001 9:31

Clair Weaver