A royal doctor who confessed to a series of medical blunders which led to the death of a top City banker is to keep his job after a tribunal ruled he posed no risk to patients.
Dr Peter Wheeler, 68, who was a private physician to Princess Diana , escaped with a written warning.
Health watchdogs said his failings occurred in the "context of a single patient in an otherwise exemplary career."
Wheeler was charged with professional misconduct over claims from Stefanos Vavalidis' family that he was "slowly poisoned drip, by drip" over an 11 year period by a potentially toxic anti-cancer medication.
The married father of two had initially treated psoriasis correctly with drug methotrexate prescribed to him by a dermatologist in 1999.
Wheeler took over the treatment in 2003 and give the successful financier 23 repeat prescriptions without studying the prescribing guidelines.
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The GP also failed to request Mr Vavalidis undergo any tests to monitor the effect of the drug on his liver when he was repeatedly struck down by illness and having a blood platelet count running at 67 when the normal count is 150.
The financier, a former director of the National Bank of Greece who lived in Chelsea, suffered acute liver damage and was said to have "suffered gravely".
When his immune system began to gradually shut down he found it difficult to climb stairs and had to fit a ramp to his holiday home in Greece.
He eventually fell ill on a family holiday to Athens in May 2015 where he was diagnosed with liver disease, cirrhosis, hepatitis failure, progressive bone marrow failure and acute gastrointestinal bleeding.
He was flown back to the UK by air ambulance but passed away at University College Hospital in London in January 2016 aged 69.
Tests showed he had died from cirrhosis of the liver after suffering methotrexate toxicity.
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At the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service, in Manchester, Wheeler, from Belgravia, London faced being struck off after he was found guilty of misconduct charges with the General Medical Council.
He had been by the Council of "arrogance and over assuredness" during his treatment of Mr Vavalidis who had been his patient since 1984.
But a disciplinary panel said Wheeler's fitness to practise was not impaired after the GP handed in character references describing him as a 'Premier League" doctor and said he had since improved procedures at his clinic in Sloan Street, Knightsbridge.
The family of Mr Vavalidis who was known as Patient A were not at the hearing.
Tribunal chairman Mr Lindsay Irvine said the warning would remain on Wheeler's record for five years.
He added: "Dr Wheeler's persistent and repeated errors exposed Patient A to the risk of significant potential harm however, it noted that Dr Wheeler acknowledged and accepted the allegations against him and has taken significant steps to educate himself and others to ensure that the risk of any repetition is very low.
"He has undertaken an outstanding range of actions to address the weaknesses and shortcomings in his clinical practice and demonstrated genuine remorse.
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"The Tribunal therefore concluded the risk of repetition is low in this case.
"His failings occurred in the context of a single patient in an otherwise exemplary 38 year career as a GP.
"It noted that he had demonstrated comprehensive insight and remediation."
Wheeler officially identified Diana's body after she was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997 and who has also treated Prince Charles and the Duke of Kent.
He apologised for his treatment of Mr Vavalildis but said: "I didn't have many face to face consultations with him, not at least until 2012 onwards.
"When he came to me over the years it was about minor viruses, nothing terribly serious.
"The effects he was experiencing were simply viral infections, as opposed to serious infections or sepsis , as that's what methotrexate is usually the symptoms of.
"I accept there was a gap in his testing. I did send a letter to the patient and I told him I was going to make further checks, it was my intention to do so and I cannot find any explanation as to why that was not done.
"This has not happened with other patients, that I'm aware of, this is the only case this has happened with.
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"I did send a letter to his wife to offer my condolences. I have always accepted full responsibility for that.
"I have never sought to blame the patient. It was always my responsibility, not his. There has been changes made to the IT systems and the policies at the surgery.
"My remorse is absolutely genuine. I am devastated by what had happened in the care of the patient. I have profound regret for the mistakes I made."
His lawyer Mary O'Rourke QC said: "He is 68 and tells me that he is about to end his career in the autumn and it will end a 50 year career straight from medical school with a previously unblemished record which now has a stain on it.
"It's not like he is not going to be reminded of this matter. He has lived with that in the circumstances where he has maintained a high professionalism with his patients.
"A warning will go beyond the end of his career.
"There have been a lot of lessons learned and a lot of remorse.
"His patients stand with him despite the bad publicity. When he goes back his patients love him and believe in him."
At an inquest in November 2016 into Mr Vavalidis' death Wheeler admitted he did not read the prescribing guidelines for the drug.
He later said Mr Vavalidis would still have died of liver failure as he was obese and diabetic but confessed the banker might have lived another 18 months were it not for his mistakes.
The dead man's widow Barbara who was married to him for 45 years believes if proper monitoring and investigations had been carried out, a liver biopsy would have been performed in 2006.
