When Standing Your Ground Becomes a Movement: The Michelle Davies Story

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Written by Michelle Davies

Published: 19 September 2026

Created: 22 August 2026

Last Updated: 19 September 2026

How a complaint, a commercial lien and one woman saying “No” became an unexpectedly expensive administrative exercise

It actually began with me making a complaint about them.

I believed the General Osteopathic Council had caused harm to me and to the public by censoring my work. Being Michelle Davies, I didn’t simply write a strongly worded letter and wait patiently for somebody to send me a reference number.

I issued a commercial lien.

It is fair to say they were not fans.

The writing in my lien subsequently became part of GOsC’s concerns about my mental health. From my perspective, what followed felt remarkably like retaliation: I had challenged the regulator and attempted to hold it accountable, and suddenly my mental fitness was being questioned.

Their proposed solution?

Access to my medical information and a medical/psychiatric assessment.

My response?

No.

And thus began what may eventually be remembered as one of the more expensive uses of the word no in British osteopathic history.

The Machine Starts Turning

In October 2021, GOsC suspended me on an interim basis.

Perhaps this was when I was expected to disappear quietly.

Unfortunately for the budget, they had selected the wrong Michelle.

I contested them.

Then came one of the more surreal chapters.

I explicitly told people that I was not a registered osteopath and did not claim to be one.

You might imagine:

“I am not a registered osteopath”

would be reasonably persuasive evidence that I wasn’t telling people I was a registered osteopath.

Apparently things were more complicated.

GOsC prosecuted me over use of the protected title. The court concluded that, despite my disclaimer, the way I presented myself nevertheless amounted to representing myself as an osteopath.

So we arrived at the magnificent linguistic position:

I said I wasn’t an osteopath.

They successfully argued that this effectively meant I was saying I was one.

At this point even George Orwell might have requested clarification.

They won.

I appealed.

So now we needed another court.

They won again.

And still it wasn’t over.

The Grand Finale

By 2024 we arrived at the Professional Conduct Committee.

A five-day hearing, spread across April and June.

Three committee members. Lawyers for GOsC. A committee clerk. And King’s Counsel acting as Legal Assessor.

What had started with me complaining about the regulator had somehow developed into years of regulatory proceedings against me.

Eventually the Committee removed me from the Register.

After almost three years, perhaps somebody finally switched off the heroic printer.

And I walked away.

Then I Looked at the Numbers

During the period they were pursuing me, GOsC was spending more than £1 million a year operating its fitness-to-practise function, and it described investigations and hearings as its single largest area of non-staff expenditure.

In 2022–23, direct fitness-to-practise and legal expenditure was approximately £831,000, including around £323,000 on Professional Conduct Committee proceedings.

Unfortunately, the accounts don’t contain a line marked:

MICHELLE DAVIES - £___

Shame. I’d genuinely like to know.

I cannot say what my individual case cost them. But interim proceedings, lawyers, a prosecution, Magistrates’ Court, a Crown Court appeal, years of regulatory proceedings and finally a five-day PCC hearing clearly required substantial resources.

Then Google joined in.

When asked about GOsC cases associated with escalating legal expenditure, Google’s AI Overview produced:

“The Michelle Davies Case”

and described it as:

“A prime example of compounding legal costs.”

After years of being considered a regulatory problem, I had apparently graduated to becoming a case study in regulatory economics.

I’ll take it.

And Then They Sold Osteopathy House

GOsC subsequently decided to sell Osteopathy House and move premises, citing the considerable costs of maintaining an underused building and the opportunity to reduce expenditure.

I am absolutely not claiming that Michelle Davies caused GOsC to sell its headquarters.

There is no evidence for that.

It would be ridiculous.

It would also be extremely funny.

I imagine an accountant sitting in Osteopathy House.

He looks at the legal expenditure.

He looks at the committee expenditure.

He looks at the building.

He looks back at the spreadsheet.

Long silence.

“Has anyone called an estate agent?”

The Part They Hadn’t Accounted For

There was one thing their lawyers, committees and budgets couldn’t quantify.

My faith.

Throughout the proceedings I stood on the name of God and often said:

“The Holy Spirit is my lawyer.”

They had solicitors, barristers, committees and an entire regulatory machine.

I believed I had God on my side.

They won legal decisions, but that was never my definition of victory. They could remove my registration, but they couldn’t defeat me or determine what happened next.

And what happened next?

Harley Street, international work and patients travelling from around the world to see me.

That, to me, is why I say:

They were never going to win.

Meanwhile…

My career didn’t end.

My work became international. I went on to help patients from more than 30 countries, established a clinic on Harley Street — one of the world’s most famous streets for private healthcare — and patients began flying from around the world to see me.

There is a certain poetry to where everyone ended up.

GOsC got my registration.

They didn’t get my agreement.

They didn’t stop my work.

They didn’t determine my future.

They eventually put Osteopathy House up for sale.

And I ended up on Harley Street with an international clientele.

Did Michelle Davies cause The Fall of the GOsC?

Of course not.

The title is satire.

But if Osteopathy House ever acquires one of those little blue historical plaques, I already know what I’d like written on it:

MICHELLE DAVIES

Never worked here.

But certainly kept them busy.