Kirk v Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | Lord Hoffmann |
| Judgment Date | 19 January 2004 |
| Neutral Citation | [2004] UKPC 4 |
| Docket Number | Appeal No. 51 of 2002 |
| Court | Privy Council |
| Date | 19 January 2004 |
[2004] UKPC 4
Present at the hearing:-
Lord Hoffmann
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry
Sir Philip Otton
Privy Council
[Delivered by Lord Hoffmann]
On 29 May 2002 the Disciplinary Committee of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons directed that the name of the appellant Mr Maurice Kirk be removed from the register. The sentence was imposed pursuant to a finding of the Committee that Mr Kirk had been convicted of 11 criminal offences which rendered him unfit to practise veterinary surgery. The Committee also directed that he be suspended from the register for 6 months for a separate incident in respect of which it had found that he was guilty of disgraceful conduct in a professional respect. Mr Kirk appeals to Her Majesty in Council against the findings and directions.
This is a very unusual case. Mr Kirk has an inherited love of veterinary surgery (his father was a veterinary surgeon) and there is no question about his dedication and competence. On the contrary, he appears to be one of a small number of veterinary surgeons practising in Wales who is willing to be called out any time of the day or night to a sick creature. He will sometimes even use his own light aircraft to get there. No animal has any ground for complaint against him.
Mr Kirk's problem is with people. He combines independence of spirit and a passion for justice with a flaming temper and complete insensitivity to the feelings of others. He sees conspiracies under every bush and believes on principle that all members of the police and legal profession are dishonest and corrupt. He can be abrasive with animal owners and abusive – sometimes violent - towards any of the substantial number of people whom he regards as enemies of justice. The result of this explosive mixture of admirable and less admirable qualities has been a long series of incidents which have brought Mr Kirk into conflict with the law. They have also produced a succession of complaints to the Royal Veterinary College. Over the years Mr Kirk, without legal assistance, has defended himself against literally dozens of prosecutions and at least two previous disciplinary proceedings. On many such occasions he has been successful and when he has not, he has indomitably paid fines and undergone imprisonment, only to return to the fray. But now the College has had enough and the Disciplinary Committee has decided that his behaviour has been such as to make him unfit to practise.
The first time Mr Kirk was arraigned before the Disciplinary was in 1984. On that occasion the College relied upon 17 convictions, including assault occasioning actual bodily harm (6 months imprisonment suspended), imperilling the safety of an aircraft while under the influence of drink (6 months imprisonment) and assaulting two police officers (3 months imprisonment). All the convictions were proved but the Committee found that only the assault causing actual bodily harm (throwing a tenant of his upstairs flat down the stairs) was such as to render him unfit to practise as a veterinary surgeon. It dismissed the other charges. In view of the fact that the assault had taken place 8 years earlier, the Committee decided to make no order other than to warn Mr Kirk as to his future conduct. The chairman told him that "continued conflict with authority must inevitably affect not only yourself, but also your profession by bringing it into disrepute".
The next proceedings were in 1988. Mr Kirk was then living in the Channel Islands. This time there were three convictions for contempt of court in Guernsey and an incident in which he had erected what was said to be an offensive sign outside his veterinary surgery. The Committee found that one of the convictions for contempt of court (trying to make a "citizen's arrest" of a magistrate in court) was such as render Mr Kirk unfit to practise as a veterinary surgeon. But the incident had taken place before the 1984 warning and the Committee took into account the severity of the sentence of imprisonment which had been imposed by the courts in Guernsey. The Committee decided to make no immediate order but to postpone judgment for two years. After a further postponement the Committee was told that Mr Kirk had moved from the Channel Islands to South Wales and it received testimonials from colleagues in the area. It made no order but again warned Mr Kirk as to his future conduct.
Before recounting the details of the convictions relied upon by the Disciplinary Committee in the proceedings under appeal, their Lordships must state the legal effect of a statute such as section 16(1)(a) of the Veterinary Surgeons 1966 Act, which entitles the Disciplinary Committee to find that a conviction for a criminal offence renders a registered veterinary surgeon unfit to practise. The effect of the statute is to preclude the practitioner from denying the truth of any facts necessarily implied in the conviction. As Viscount Simon LC said in General Medical Council v Spackman [1943] AC 627, 634-635:
"… the decision of the council is properly based on the fact of the conviction, and the practitioner cannot go behind it and endeavour to show that he was innocent of the charge and should have been acquitted."
On the other hand, rule 8 of the Veterinary Surgeons and Veterinary Practitioners (Disciplinary Committee) (Procedure and Evidence) Rules 1967 ( SI 1967 No 659) provides in paragraph (1)(b)(ii) that the College may –
"adduce evidence, with regard to the nature and circumstances of the offence, to show that … the convictions … are such as to render the respondent unfit to practise veterinary surgery"
and, in paragraph (2)(b), that the respondent may –
"adduce evidence with regard to the nature and circumstances of the offence, to show that he is not unfit by reason thereof to practise veterinary surgery."
Thus both the College and the practitioner may adduce evidence about the underlying facts upon which the conviction is based, provided that the facts which such evidence is relevant to prove are not inconsistent with the finding that the respondent was guilty of the offence. What the practitioner cannot do is to relitigate the conviction before the Committee.
Their Lordships will consider first the four convictions for assault or related offences, of which the Committee said that any one taken alone would be sufficient to support the finding that Mr Kirk was unfit to practise as a veterinary surgeon.
The first was in 1995. Mr Kirk was convicted by the Vale of Glamorgan Magistrates of common assault upon Nicola Andrews, the 17-year-old daughter of a former tenant of residential premises which he owned opposite his surgery. The magistrates clearly took a serious view of the matter and sentenced him to three months imprisonment. He appealed to the Cardiff Crown Court against both conviction and sentence. It appears that he cross-examined Nicola for more than a day but the appeal against conviction was dismissed. The sentence of imprisonment was however set aside and a fine of £500 and an order for payment of £350 compensation to Nicola was substituted.
The College called Detective Constable Susan Sidford, who had investigated the complaint by Nicola's mother. She said Nicola was distressed and crying and had a bruise on her arm. Mr Kirk's evidence to the Committee was that Nicola's mother had been his tenant and that she, or others occupying the property with her consent, had caused a good deal of damage. He produced photographs which demonstrated this to be the case. Mr Kirk said that he had found Nicola on the premises after it had been vacated and grabbed her because he thought she was a thief.
It is clear that these matters were exhaustively investigated by the magistrates and the Crown Court, which found the charge of assault proved. Although the Crown Court did not think that it merited so severe a punishment as the magistrates had imposed, the amount of the fine shows that the court did not regard the incident as trivial.
The next assault case was in 1997, when Mr Kirk was convicted by the Bristol Magistrates of common assault and threatening behaviour (under section 4 of the Public Order Act 1936) arising out of an incident at the Plume and Feathers Public House in Bristol. The complainant was Mr Christopher Ebbs, who had done some work on an aircraft belonging to Mr Kirk. It appears that Mr Ebbs was exercising a lien on the aircraft's logbooks and other documentation as security for a bill of about £22,000. They arranged to meet in the public house. Mr Ebbs said in evidence that this was with a view to exchanging the aircraft documentation for a cheque. He said that while they were having a drink, Mr Kirk swung a fist at him, knocked him to the ground, kicked him in the ribs and tried to extract the documents from his coat pocket. This was the basis of the charge of common assault. He was also alleged to have said "I've got a shotgun and I know where your parents live". As a result of this threat, Mr Ebbs went to the police who moved his parents into a hotel and provided them with armed protection. This threat was the basis of the charge of threatening behaviour. Mr Kirk's evidence was that he asked for his papers and reached over expecting to receive them, but Mr Ebbs fell off his chair. As Mr Kirk tried to help him up, a drunken customer grabbed him. He denied kicking or punching Ebbs or making threats against his parents.
The Bristol magistrates convicted on both charges and imposed fines of £600 for the assault and £500 for threatening behaviour, together with an order to pay Mr Ebbs £100 compensation. Mr Kirk appealed to the Bristol Crown Court but the appeal was dismissed. He also...
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