According to The Guardian, Dr. Richard Freeman's legal counsel is pressuring the General Medical Council (GMC) for an "order to obtain" a statement signed by Shane Sutton.

Mary O'Rourke QC wants the GMC to obtain a statement from the Daily Mail, which first published an article about the "jiffy bag" delivered to Team Sky at the 2011 Criterium du Dauphiné when Freeman was the team doctor. The article triggered a UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) investigation, which also found evidence that 30 bags of the testosterone product "Testogel" had been received at the headquarters of British Cycling and Team Sky in Manchester in 2011.

Freeman, Sutton, and David Brailsford, the head of Team Sky, were all called before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee of British MPs to testify about the "jiffy bags."

Sutton testified that the package was medical and pointed the finger at Bradley Wiggins as the intended recipient of the drugs contained inside. Later, David Brailsford, a representative of Team Sky, testified that the package contained Fluimucil. Fluimucil is a legal decongestant and was readily available near Switzerland, where Freeman had previously obtained it.

Because of Freeman's poor record keeping and the theft of his laptop that year, there was no paper trail to prove or disprove the contents of the package, and despite the committee's concern that "for many people, the whole package is an improbable story to say the least," neither they nor UKAD could, without evidence . no definitive conclusion could be reached.

Freeman resigned his position in 2017 and is now facing the Medical Practitioners Tribual Service after the GMC raised 22 allegations of misconduct, only four of which Freeman is contesting. Freeman is contesting only four cases, all of which relate to the test gel order and its motive.

The GMC suspects that Freeman ordered it to improve the athlete's performance. Freeman denied this and accused Sutton of bullying him into ordering it as a purported cure for erectile dysfunction, which Sutton angrily denied. Dr. Steve Peters, then medical director, testified that he thought Freeman might have ordered it for himself.

Freeman admitted that he lied to Peters about the order, saying he made it by mistake and sent it back to the supplier, and Peters repeated this lie to the media.

It remains to be seen whether the witness statement that O'Rourke claims to have in a safe in the Daily Mail editor's office will reveal the truth. The court must now decide whether it can adopt Sutton's testimony into evidence after he left early and refused to return. If that cannot be done, O'Rourke hopes to have the charges against Freeman thrown out.