Bluetooth Low Energy doesn't support simultaneous central and peripheral roles

Qt application running locally on Ubuntu 16.04, BlueZ version 3.7 can't support two QLowEnergyControllers in different roles (one setup as a peripheral, the other setup as a central). If I have an external central device connected to the peripheral QLowEnergyController then attempt to connect to an external peripheral via the central QLowEnergyController I get the following error: qt.bluetooth.bluez: void QBluetoothSocketPrivate::_q_readNotify() 8 error: -1 "Software caused connection abort". The connection from the external central to the peripheral QLowEnergyController is then lost, however connecting to the external peripheral via the central QLowEnergyController works fine.

The only illegal mode of operation I can see in the documentation is having two controllers connected to the same remote device, which should not be possible with only 1 controller in the central role.