Raj Persaud, the television psychiatrist, has admitted copying the work of other academics in his book `From the Edge of the Couch' and in articles

TV psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud admits copying work of other academics
article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"Dr Persaud, who is a regular on Richard and Judy, made the admission on the first day of a General Medical Council hearing that will determine whether he has been guilty of misconduct.

Today the presenter of Radio 4's 'All in the Mind' programme was found to have "copied" other people's papers and written articles that were not his own work."

"Dr Persaud's 2003 book `From the Edge of the Couch' contained passages plagiarised from four different academic articles written by nine authors.

Passages from an article and book by Professor Thomas Blass titled `The Man Who Shocked the World' were also plagiarised for four of Dr Persaud's articles.

Extracts from Prof Blass's work were found in Dr Persaud's paper `Why the Media Refuses to Obey' published in the March 2005 edition of 'Progress in Neurology and Psychiatry'.

Prof Blass's work was also lifted for an article 'Frailty That Allows Evil to Triumph' published in the Times Educational Supplement in February 2005.

Dr Persaud's paper 'The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram', which was published by the British Medical Journal in August 2005 also drew from Prof Blass's work.

The same applied to Dr Persaud's article 'Do You Obey Or Do You Rebel' submitted to the BMJ for publication before the end of 2005.

On June 30 2005, the Independent newspaper ran a piece by Dr Persaud titled 'A Dangerous War on Psychiatry', which was plagiarised from 'The Globalization of Scientology; Influence, Control and Opposition in Transnational Markets' by Professor Stephen Kent.

The allegations first arose in November 2005. At the time Dr Persaud was a consultant psychiatrist for the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, a position he still holds."

I've always considered Raj Persaud one of the better psychiatrists. (There are a lot of lousy ones.) His books show sympathy and understanding, and he gives good advice. Many years ago he used to have regular short articles in British Mensa's monthly glossy magazine. They were excellent.

Damien Hirst guilty of plagiarism?

Meet the grandfather of Britart - Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"When Damien Hirst and his fellow enfants terribles burst on to the art scene in the Nineties, there was no doubt that they had drawn inspiration from sources that were far from the cultural mainstream.

Just how far has now become clear. A gruesome book written as the definitive guide to the science of pathology was so heavily mined by leading artists in the movement that an octogenarian Cambridge professor can rightly be credited as the unintentional grandfather of Britart, one of their number has confessed.

Featuring graphic photographs of murder scenes, decomposed bodies, dissected organs and medical instruments, A Colour Atlas of Forensic Pathology, by G Austin Gresham, was the Britart bible, according to Mat Collishaw, the young British artist who came to prominence at the Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1997.

Austin Gresham, now 82 and emeritus professor of morbid anatomy and histopathology at Jesus College, compiled the book for trainee pathologists. Published in 1975, it was, according to its author, "designed to fit into a jacket pocket so that it could be taken into the field".

It was in the field of art, however, that the book has had most influence. Hirst acquired a copy from a fellow student while an art student at Goldsmiths College in south-east London in the Eighties. He was arrested by its contents and he and other artists, including Collishaw and Marcus Harvey, went on to use it as the starting point for many of their most controversial pieces."

"Despite his influence, Prof -Gresham remains unimpressed by his accidental claim to fame. Voicing disapproval of Hirst's "offensive" images, he said: "I'm very sorry that the book was an inspiration to him. It is a misuse.

"I'm not pleased that he might have used the pictures to engender his works of art. I thought that sheep in a tank was disgusting. It's not right to subject people to this kind of thing.

"But the general public are idiots when it comes to modern art. You can hang up a rat by its tail and call that art and people will believe you. And these artists seem to make a fortune out of it."

David Lee, the editor of The Jack-daw, an arts monthly, said he was not surprised by Hirst's inspiration.

"Hirst appears to have no imagination of his own whatsoever," he said. "The paradox is that he's very protective about what he sees as his own inventions but has no qualms about plagiarising other people's.""