The celebrity psychiatrist Raj Persaud was suspended for three months from practising medicine yesterday for copying the work of other academics in a book and in articles.

He showed no emotion as Anthony Morgan, chairman of the General Medical Council’s fitness-to-practise panel, told him that his plagiarism was dishonest but not serious enough to warrant the end of his professional career.

The panel ruled that Dr Persaud had brought his profession into disrepute. He admitted passing off other scholars’ work in his book, From the Edge of the Couch, and other published work.

Dr Persaud, 45, who works as a consultant psychiatrist for the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, came to prominence with media work on mental health issues. He has appeared regularly on the TV show This Morning and on the BBC Radio 4 programme All In The Mind. He apologised repeatedly during the hearing in Manchester and had already given assurances that he will retreat from much of his journalistic work. Dr Morgan told him that the panel took into account that there had been no patient harm, that his plagiarism was not financially motivated, that it did not relate to research fraud and that it was unlikely to be repeated. He said: “The panel has determined that a three-month period of suspension is sufficient to send out a signal to you, the profession and the public that plagiarism is unacceptable behaviour.”

The panel said that it was impressed by the array of people ready to offer testimonials, including Lord Owen, Martin Bashir, the journalist, and the former presenters of This Morning, Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan.

It emerged that the matter was brought to the attention of the General Medical Council by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, an organisation founded by senior members of the Scientology movement.

Dr Persaud was accused of plagiarising material for his book after an investigation by The Sunday Times in 2006. Chunks of prose, apparently written by Dr Persaud, were the work of other authors. He failed to attribute the so-called “stolen words”, most notably a passage in the introduction that concerned mental health and creativity.

Dr Persaud, who is a visiting Gresham Professor for Public Understanding of Psychiatry and a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said that at the time he believed he had acknowledged other authors’ work sufficiently. He obtained permission to quote them and included their names in the acknowledgements section.

He told the General Medical Council (GMC): “I realise I should have been much more careful when I started writing the book. At the time, given the stress I was under, given the deadlines and my other work, I thought I was adequately attributing work. It was not my intention to pass off other people’s work as mine.”

Professor Richard Bentall, of Bangor University, told the GMC that a research paper he co-wrote appeared to have been “cut and pasted” into the book. He said that he had uncovered more examples of plagiarism after comparing passages in Dr Persaud’s book with material on the internet.

Dr Persaud issued a statement last night describing his sorrow at the panel’s findings. “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,” he said.

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