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One of Great Britain's most media savvy psychiatrists, who confessed to plagiarizing other authors in articles he wrote in newspapers and medical journals, has been suspended from practicing psychiatry for three months.

The UK's General Medical Council (GMC) suspended Raj Persaud, a frequent commentator on British television and radio shows, after he admitted, to a GMC disciplinary panel, lifting words from other authors without proper attribution in 2004 and 2005. Persaud denied purposeful dishonesty.

"At the time, given the stress I was under, given the deadlines and my other work, I thought I was adequately attributing work," Persaud told the panel.

The GMC panel found that Persaud was guilty of plagiarism in a total of five articles, two of which he wrote for the British Medical Journal. According to the BMJ, the first was an August 2005 review of a book by University of Maryland social psychologist Thomas Blass that the BMJ later retracted, and the other was rejected by the journal in December 2005 after Persaud had already been accused of plagiarism.

Persaud wrote another article containing plagiarized passages in the February 2005 issue of Progress in Neurology and Psychiatry. That article was retracted when Blass accused Persaud of copying his work.

The GMC began investigating Persaud when he ran afoul of The Church of Scientology, which holds that the entire field of psychology is fraudulent. A 2005 Independent article in which Persaud criticized Scientology's founder, L Ron Hubbard, was found to contain plagiarized passages. After the article was published, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, which was founded by The Church of Scientology, brought a formal complaint to the GMC.

The panel also determined that Persaud committed plagiarism in his 2003 book From the Edge of the Couch.

While being investigated by the GMC panel, Persaud has continued to publish articles in both popular and scientific media, including a story on researchers studying humans' ability to detect deception in the New Scientist, entitled "The truth about lies."

In a statement from the Medical Protection Society issued on Persaud's behalf, the psychiatrist said: "I am saddened by the findings and decision of the GMC... As I said during the Hearing, I accept that my use of the work of some authors lacked adequate acknowledgement. I have apologised repeatedly for this during the hearing, and I apologise for this now. I am saddened that this occurred while I was seeking to promote the work of academics to the wider public."