One of the Chelmsford deep sleep therapy doctors, who lost his multimillion-dollar defamation lawsuit claiming he had been falsely maligned as grossly negligent, is continuing his court battle to clear his name.

Dr John Gill, a former GP, and ex-psychiatrist John Herron both worked at Chelmsford Hospital in Sydney in the 1970s, administering treatments blamed for the deaths of psychiatric patients.

Last year, they sued ABC journalist Steve Cannae over his book, Fair Game: The Untold Story of Scientology in Australia, which explored the church’s role in exposing the scandal. 

Following an eight-week hearing, the Federal Court of Australia found the imputations made in the book were substantially true, ruling the only credible version of events was that deep sleep therapy was a “dangerous experimental treatment’ (see box below for full details) used on vulnerable patients.