Campbell v Hamlet
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood |
| Judgment Date | 25 April 2005 |
| Neutral Citation | [2005] UKPC 19 |
| Court | Privy Council |
| Docket Number | Appeal No. 73 of 2001 |
| Date | 25 April 2005 |
[2005] UKPC 19
Present at the hearing:-
Lord Hope of Craighead
Lord Scott of Foscote
Baroness Hale of Richmond
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood
Sir Swinton Thomas
Privy Council
[Delivered by Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood]
The appellant, Wilston Campbell, is an Attorney at Law practising in San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago. As long ago as February 1987 a complaint of professional misconduct was made against him to the Attorneys at Law Disciplinary Committee (the Committee) by Simon Alexander. (Simon Alexander died in 2003 and although he was replaced as respondent to this appeal by the executrix of his estate, for convenience the Board will continue to refer to him as the respondent.) The essence of his complaint was that he had paid the appellant $29,400 to purchase from him two parcels of land but the appellant had neither conveyed the land nor returned the purchase price. The appellant had, in short, bilked him.
In November 1987 the appellant raised a preliminary objection before the Committee, contending that the complaint failed to disclose any professional misconduct within the meaning of section 5 of the Legal Profession Act 1986, (the 1986 Act) the statute governing what was then the state's newly fused legal profession. On 10 December 1987, however, the Committee ruled against that objection and, in February 1988, it embarked on the substantive hearing of the complaint. The hearing lasted in all for eleven days stretching over a ten month period ending on 6 December 1988 when there was a final adjournment for attorneys' addresses. Quite when these were made is not known but, astonishingly, it was not until 29 October 1996 that the Committee produced its Findings and Orders. The Committee found the allegation of professional misconduct substantiated and ordered the appellant to pay the respondent compensation of $29,400 together with interest from the date of their order until payment, together with costs.
On 9 December 1996 the appellant appealed to the Court of Appeal on two grounds:
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(i) that the Committee's decision was unreasonable and could not be supported, having regard to the evidence, and
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(ii) that the complaint did not disclose any professional misconduct on the part of the appellant in his capacity as an attorney at law.
The appeal was heard in early 2000 and dismissed with costs by the Court (Hamel-Smith, Jones and Nelson JJA) on 22 May 2000 – the joint judgment of Hamel-Smith and Nelson JJA being concurred in by Jones JA.
Conditional leave to appeal to the Board was granted by the Court of Appeal on 7 July 2000 and, upon the appellant giving security of £500, final leave was given on 4 December 2000. Two principal arguments are advanced before the Board, neither having been advanced before the Court of Appeal: first, that the Committee should have applied, but failed to apply, the criminal standard of proof in their determination of the respondent's complaint; second, that the eight-year delay in the delivery of the Committee's judgment was both intrinsically unfair and such as to affect adversely the quality of the judgment.
With that comparatively brief introduction it is necessary now to return to the facts although, given the limited grounds of appeal before the Board, not in any great detail.
The events giving rise to the complaint took place in 1985-1986. The respondent was then living with his common law wife, Kathleen Sylvester, in a rented property in Sangre Grande, buying that property off the landlord company and paying the price by instalments to the company's agent, one Gabby Osbourne. The payments being completed by August 1985, Osbourne arranged for the appellant to prepare the necessary deed of conveyance. Shortly before 30 August 1985 Osbourne told the respondent and his wife that he was also acting as the appellant's agent in the sale of two lots of land (nos 106 and 107 George Karim Avenue, Sangre Grande). They said they were willing to buy but first wanted to meet the appellant. Osbourne there and then telephoned the appellant, spoke to him for a short time and then handed the telephone to Mrs Sylvester. The appellant told her that he had to be in Sangre Grande on 30 August and would come to their house that day and take them to see the two lots. On 30 August the appellant duly arrived in a red car and drove them to George Karim Avenue where he pointed out the two lots and confirmed that Osbourne was his agent. The respondent and his wife agreed to purchase the lots for $29,400 and were told by the appellant to deal thereafter with Osbourne both as to the payment of the purchase price (by instalments) and completion. Having paid the final instalment and confirmed with the appellant that he had duly received the payments from Osbourne the respondent was asked to attend the appellant's office to obtain the requisite deed. On 12 February 1986 the respondent attended the appellant's office with his wife and a friend, Indra Rajbansee, whereupon the appellant informed them that the lots were mortgaged for more than the purchase price and he could not, therefore, now convey them. He promised, however, to repay the purchase monies within a month, explaining that he had a shipment of tyres on the docks and that as soon as these were cleared and sold he would repay the respondent out of the proceeds. Despite repeated subsequent attempts to contact the appellant, however, the money was never repaid.
The appellant's case was strikingly different. He denied ever having been the owner of plots 106 and 107, ever having agreed to sell those plots or any other land to the respondent, and ever having received any monies from him for the purchase of any land. He denied that Osbourne was his agent and denied ever having referred to him as such. He denied having spoken to Mrs Sylvester on the telephone shortly before 30 August 1985, having visited the respondent's home on that day, or having shown the respondent and his wife any land at any time. He admitted meeting the respondent and his wife and Indra Rajbansee at his office on 12 February 1986 but said that they were there to seek his help in persuading Osbourne to return their money and that he had told them it was Osbourne who owned the tyres on the docks.
The Committee accepted the respondent's and Mrs Sylvester's account of the matter and rejected the appellant's evidence. Amongst the many considerations leading them to that conclusion were that the appellant undoubtedly had gone to Sangre Grande on 30 August 1985 (he was in court there that day from about 8.45 am till about 10.30 am, having driven there from San Fernando in a red car); the appellant did own two lots on George Karim Avenue (although he said that they were lots 108 and 109 rather than 106 and 107), and these were indeed mortgaged. The Committee "were impressed by the honesty, the forthrightness of the purchasers, the consistency of their answers under cross-examination and their general demeanour". By contrast "the Committee was rather disturbed by the conduct and behaviour of the attorney in this matter and the evidence given by him, most of which we reject as being ad hoc and tailored for the purpose of meeting the applicant's case. … We had no difficulty in rejecting the attorney's version of the events as a complete fabrication".
Having held "that at all material times the relationship of attorney and client existed between [the appellant] and [the respondent] in respect of this transaction," the Committee finally concluded:
"In light of all the evidence tendered in this matter and upon careful consideration of the facts the Committee is satisfied that the allegation made against the Attorney is one which can properly be construed or interpreted as professional misconduct. … an Attorney-at-Law must at all times be a person of the utmost integrity and probity … Both client and the general public must have supreme confidence in their ability to deal with an attorney at law with complete frankness and openness and, most important of all, without the least fear or trepidation that they would be taken advantage of or misled in any way.
As to whether the requisite burden and standard of proof has been established in this application is a matter to which the Committee has given the most careful thought and utmost consideration and upon the evidence placed before the Committee, the Committee finds that that burden has been satisfied."
As stated, the first ground of appeal before the Court of Appeal was that the Committee's decision was unreasonable and unsustainable having regard to the evidence. The appellant's principal complaint in that regard focused on the telephone conversation which Mrs Sylvester said she had with the appellant shortly before the disputed meeting on 30 August 1985, a conversation to fix a meeting that day specifically because the appellant was already required to be in Sangre Grande that morning. Mrs Sylvester's evidence was that the phone conversation took place "about a week" before 30 August and was a local call. The appellant denied that any such conversation took place and produced his passport to prove that he had been in Miami for a week up to 27 August, and had only cleared customs on 28 August. The Committee said nothing in its determination about this particular point although it plainly concluded that the parties had met by prearrangement on 30 August.
In disposing of this complaint the Court of Appeal noted that Mrs Sylvester "was recalling something she had done some three years before," and concluded:
"What … makes it more probable that the call did take place (whether it was one week before or two days before) is the fact that the wife said that the...
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Subject Index
.... . . . . . . . . . . . . .220C plc v P (Attorney-General intervening) [2007]EWCA Civ493, [2007] 3WLR 437. . . . 150–155Campbell vHamlet [2005] UKPC19 . . . . . . . . .287Carr v The State of Western Australia [2007] HCA47. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......
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Legal Profession
...the criminal standard of proof. Indeed, no one even supposes that it can be otherwise. Thus, the Privy Council in Campbell v Hamlet[2005] 3 All ER 1116 (‘Campbell’) at [16] entertained no doubt that the criminal standard of proof was the correct standard to be applied in all disciplinary pr......
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