The Medical Board of Australia must repay $185,000 in legal costs to a former chief psychiatrist who successfully defended an allegation that he had entered into an improper relationship with a patient.

Dr Aaron Groves began a relationship with the woman, who is now his wife, in late 2021, around seven months after she had briefly been under his care as Tasmania’s top psychiatrist.

He has spent nearly four years unable to practise after the board imposed sanctions on him.

But in June, a tribunal dismissed the allegation that Dr Groves had breached professional boundaries by entering a relationship with the woman, referred to as Ms AA.