A doctor was fined thousands this week for running an illegal transgender clinic which dished out sex-change drugs to children as young as 12 years old.

Dr Helen Webberley, 49, charged up to £150 an hour, offering advice and powerful hormones to children with gender dysphoria issues from a private clinic set up at her Abergavenny home.

Offering online medical advice under her firm name ‘Gender GP,’ Webberley took between £75 and £150 per hour from patients looking for ‘gender reassignment’.

A court heard Webberly gave powerful hormones to children as young as 12, after they had been denied the life-changing treatment on the NHS.

Such treatment is said to cause permanent body changes, and fertility issues, with practitioners claiming such treatment can offset puberty, making any surgical transition easier in future.

Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW) refused Webberly a license to run her clinic last year, but her firm ran its services between March 2017 and February this year.

Her website offered a range of services, including drugs to help ‘transition’ from male to female or vice-versa via the prescription of oestrogen and testosterone.??The website’s mission statement, read, "You are never too young or never too old to get help and support.

"Whether you just need some advice about your thoughts and feelings, would like some safe and affordable care to continue your transition, or whether you are ready to start the whole process, then please contact me for advice.”

Webberly was convicted of illegally providing healthcare services.

Merthyr Tydfil Magistrates’ Court heard Webberley claim that shutting her service risked patients coming to harm.

But District Judge Neil Thomas ruled Webberley and her company broke the Care Standards Act.

Russell Davies, defending, said ‘snowballing’ interest in transgender treatment led Webberly to open up the clinic offering specialist advice to transgender patients.

Mr Davies said, “Webberley didn’t set up the company for financial gain or for profit at all.

"Here was a doctor who was providing care, information and advice that was very much needed. But her business was not registered.

"It was never anticipated by Webberley that the registration of the company would be in any way controversial.

"She didn’t appreciate that the company needed registration until it was pointed out to her.

"Webberley always followed the international guidelines for transgender care, but what she didn’t do was to state how many patients there were, how old they were and what treatment was included.

"It is regrettable that she didn’t provide that information. She didn’t provide it due to confidentiality and that was misplaced.

"She was a very caring practitioner who never developed the company for financial gain. She was only motivated by the care of her patients."

The court heard that Webberley continued in spite of having no license being because she didn’t want to risk stopping patients’ treatments.

He said: "Due to the number of patients under her care she was “concerned that the cessation of the website would be harmful.

"The continuation was never because of financial greed."

Webberley was ordered to pay a £12,000 fine as well as a £2,000 fine issued to her GenderGP business.

She was also told to pay £11,307 costs.

Judge Thomas said: "In this case there seems to be a clear refusal to follow the law and that is a significant aggravating factor.”

HIW Chief Executive Dr Kate Chamberlain welcomed the guilty verdict.

"Unregistered healthcare services pose a risk to patient safety as they are not subject to the same level of scrutiny as registered services,” she said.

Dr Webberley issued a statement following Monday’s hearing.

”I was stunned at the outcome of the hearing held in August which reached its conclusion today.

"I began providing private healthcare to the trans and non-binary community because there was a desperate need and there was no such NHS provision within Wales.

"My work, which so many of my patients have called life-saving, has now resulted in a criminal record and this is absolutely devastating for me.

"I never set out to break the law. I had hoped to be able to work with the HIW to register my services while continuing to provide the care that was so desperately needed, but sadly this was not an option.

"The needs of this minority group of people must be recognised. We as a country can do better. The NHS waiting time of up to four years for a first appointment is unconstitutional. Better interim care options must be provided and I urge regulators to take a more collaborative approach.

"I am taking this fight to Parliament. I have written a letter calling for a better deal for trans and non binary people and I urge gender variant people and their allies to lend their support.”??David Davies MP said the supply of such drugs should be outlawed. ??“We should not, under any circumstances, be allowing children to take powerful sex change drugs and I raised this issue with Theresa May in Prime Minister’s Questions.

 

“I am very concerned at the way in which young children are being given information about ‘changing gender’. There are publicly funded organisations which are telling schools that it is fine for children to simply ‘change gender’ and that parents need not be told. On the weekend I discovered that one publicly funded group is giving out ‘breast binders’ to girls who think they are boys and sending them under plain cover so that parents do not see them.

 

“This is all utterly wrong. A small number of transgender activists groups seem to be demanding things which fly in the face of common sense.”