South Africa Psychologist Toni Raphael under Investigation for False Court Report

June 16, 2025

A Cape Town judge failed to be persuaded that he should halt an inquiry – for alleged unprofessional conduct – against a clinical psychologist accused of fabricating a court-sanctioned report on the well-being of a minor child.

Two complaints relating to her professional conduct in October 2023 prompted the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) to initiate action against Toni Raphael. The first was by a client alleging she had prepared a report for court proceedings related to the well-being of their child – in which she “claimed that she had interviewed people, including experts, when in fact she had not done so” – and the second complaint from one of the people whom the applicant “claimed to have consulted when she had not done so”.

The report allegedly misled the High Court, according to the HPCSA’s professional conduct committee (PCC), which then summoned the psychologist to an inquiry, accusing her of “unprofessional conduct of fraud”.

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