“1. The public’s trust and confidence in the profession, and the reputation of the profession generally, can be undermined by an osteopath’s professional or personal conduct. You should have regard to your professional standing, even when you are not acting as an osteopath. 2. Upholding the reputation of the profession may include: 2. 1 Acting within the law at all times (criminal convictions may be evidence that an osteopath is unfit to practise) … 2. 3 Not behaving in an aggressive or violent way in your personal or professional life…”
“(1) This section applies where any allegation is made against a registered osteopath to the effect that— (a) he has been guilty of conduct which falls short of the standard required of a registered osteopath; (b) he has been guilty of professional incompetence; (c) he has been convicted (at any time) in the United Kingdom of a criminal offence; or (d) his ability to practise as an osteopath is seriously impaired because of his physical or mental condition.”
“(1) Where an allegation has been referred to the Professional Conduct Committee under section 20 …, it shall be the duty of the Committee to consider the allegation. (2) If, having considered it, the Committee is satisfied that the allegation is well founded it shall proceed as follows. (3) If the allegation is of a kind mentioned in section 20(1)(c), the Committee may take no further action if it considers that the criminal offence in question has no material relevance to the fitness of the osteopath concerned to practise osteopathy. (4) Otherwise, the Committee shall take one of the following steps— (a) admonish the osteopath; (b) make an order imposing conditions with which he must comply while practising as an osteopath (a “conditions of practice order”); (c) order the Registrar to suspend the osteopath’s registration for such period as may be specified in the order (a “suspension order”); or (d) order the Registrar to remove the osteopath’s name from the register.”
“… that when one is dealing with byelaws and regulations of professional disciplinary bodies one cannot expect every contingency to be foreseen and provided for. The right question to ask of any procedure adopted should therefore be not whether it is permitted but whether it is prohibited. … It must, of course, still be fair and that to my mind is the critical issue in this appeal.”
“Without prejudice to rule 7, after referral of a case and after reviewing the evidence assembled by the referring committee and any material submitted by the osteopath concerned, the Committee, in any case where it considers it appropriate to do so, shall-- (a) invite the osteopath to indicate whether he accepts the facts set out in the complaint and, if so, whether he accepts that those facts amount to either unacceptable professional conduct or professional incompetence or that he has been convicted of the criminal offence or offences referred to in the complaint as the case may be; (b) indicate to him that in that event the Committee would be minded to conclude that the complaint should be dealt with by way of an admonishment without any need for a hearing unless the osteopath otherwise requests; and (c) advise the osteopath that if he does not accept the facts set out in the complaint, or he accepts some or all of these facts but denies that the facts which are so accepted amount to either unacceptable professional conduct or professional incompetence, he has the right (in accordance with rule 7(b)(i)) to appear before the Committee to argue his case and to be legally represented at such a hearing.”
“35. In any case where the Committee has found a conviction proved or has made a finding of unacceptable professional conduct … either in whole or in part, and has heard any plea in mitigation, the Committee shall consider in private what sanction, if any, it shall apply to the osteopath. 36. When all parties to the case have reassembled, the Chairman shall announce the Committee’s decision with regard to sanctions.”
“26. (1) In cases relating to conviction the order of proceedings shall be as follows— (a) the Solicitor shall be requested to adduce evidence of any conviction and its circumstances; (b) evidence of a conviction may be adduced by the production of a certified copy of a certificate of conviction relating to a criminal offence; (c) if in respect of any conviction, no evidence is so adduced, the Chairman shall announce that the conviction has not been proved; (d) the Chairman shall ask the osteopath whether he accepts each conviction of which evidence is adduced and in respect of such accepted conviction the Chairman shall announce the conviction to have been proved; (e) in respect of convictions not so accepted, the osteopath or his representative may address the Committee and adduce both oral and documentary evidence to show that he was not the person convicted; (f) thereafter the Solicitor may, with the Committee’s leave, seek to rebut any evidence of the osteopath by adducing evidence to that effect; (g) the Solicitor and then the osteopath or his representative may address the Committee. (2) On conclusion of the proceedings in paragraph (1) above, the Committee shall consider each conviction alleged in the complaint other than those admitted or announced to be not proved and shall determine whether or not each such conviction is proved and the Committee shall then announce its determination. (3) Where the Committee have found that a conviction has been proved or a conviction has been admitted, the Chairman shall— (a) invite the Solicitor to address the Committee and to adduce any further evidence as to the circumstances leading up to the conviction, and as to the character and previous history of the osteopath; and (b) invite the osteopath or his representative to address the Committee by way of mitigation and adduce any further such evidence. (4) The Solicitor and the osteopath, or his representative, shall, if appropriate, be invited to address the Committee on whether the criminal offence in question has any material relevance to the fitness of the osteopath concerned to practise osteopathy. (5) The Committee shall then proceed in accordance with rules 35 to 39.”
“27. (1) In cases of conduct … the Chairman shall ask the osteopath whether he admits any or all of the facts alleged and, in respect of any such facts so admitted, the Committee shall record a finding that those facts have been proved. (2) Where all the facts are admitted the osteopath or his representative may submit that in respect of any complaint where the facts have been admitted, those facts are insufficient to support a finding of unacceptable professional conduct …. (3) Where such a submission is made, the Solicitor [representing the Council] may answer that submission and the osteopath or his representative shall have the right of reply. (4) The Committee shall consider and determine whether to uphold the submission and if it does, the Committee shall record and announce a finding that the osteopath is not guilty of unacceptable professional conduct … in respect of the matters to which the complaint relates. (5) If none or some only of the facts are admitted or if the Committee does not uphold any submission under rule 27(4) above, the Committee shall proceed as follows-- (a) the Solicitor shall be requested to open the case against the osteopath by presenting the facts alleged on which the complaint is based and by then adducing any evidence of the facts alleged and which have not been admitted by the osteopath; (b) any witness called to give evidence may be cross-examined by the osteopath or his representative and re-examined by the Solicitor; (c) if on any allegation no evidence is adduced the Committee shall record and announce a finding that the osteopath is not guilty of unacceptable professional conduct … in respect of that allegation. (6) When the Solicitor has closed his presentation of the case, the osteopath or his representative may submit-- (a) that in respect of the facts alleged but not admitted in the complaint no sufficient evidence has been adduced upon which the Committee could find the facts proved; (b) in respect of any allegation the facts adduced or admitted are insufficient to support a finding of unacceptable professional conduct …, and where such submission or submissions are made, the Committee shall proceed in accordance with paragraphs (3) and (4) above. 28. (1) The osteopath or his representative may then address the Committee concerning any allegation that remains and may adduce evidence either documentary or oral, including his own, in his defence. (2) The osteopath or any witness called on his behalf may be cross-examined by the Solicitor and re-examined by the osteopath or his representative. (3) At the end of the evidence of the osteopath the Solicitor may with the leave of the Committee adduce evidence to rebut any evidence adduced by the osteopath or his representative. (4) The Solicitor may then address the Committee following which the osteopath or his representative may also address the Committee.”
“29. The Committee shall then consider the case in private and determine whether the facts alleged in the complaint have been proved to their satisfaction by the evidence. 30. If it so determines it must next decide whether the facts as proved amount to [UPC]… .”
“31. ,,, [T]he Chairman shall announce the Committee’s findings and its reasons for those findings, with regard both to the facts of the case and to whether the osteopath has been found guilty of [UPC] … . 32. Where the Committee finds the complaint not to be proved the Chairman shall announce this finding and the reasons for it and dismiss the case.”
“(1) Where the Committee has found the complaint proved, either in whole or in part, the Chairman shall invite the Solicitor to address the Committee as to any additional circumstances leading up to the unacceptable professional conduct or professional incompetence and as to the character and previous history of the osteopath. (2) He shall then invite the osteopath or his representative to address the Committee by way of mitigation and the osteopath may adduce oral or documentary evidence to support mitigation.”
“If, at any stage of the hearing, it appears to the Committee that the complaint should be amended, the Committee may, after hearing the parties and seeking advice from the legal assessor, make such amendments to the complaint as may seem necessary or desirable if it is satisfied that no injustice would thereby be caused.”
“Effect of discharge. (1) Subject to subsection (2) below, a conviction of an offence for which an order is made under section 12 above discharging the offender absolutely or conditionally shall be deemed not to be a conviction for any purpose other than the purposes of the proceedings in which the order is made and of any subsequent proceedings which may be taken against the offender under section 13 above. … (3) Without prejudice to subsections (1) and (2) above, the conviction of an offender who is discharged absolutely or conditionally under section 12 above shall in any event be disregarded for the purposes of any enactment or instrument which— (a) imposes any disqualification or disability upon convicted persons; or (b) authorises or requires the imposition of any such disqualification or disability.”
“On behalf of the Statutory Committee of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, I give you notice that the committee have received a complaint from the Council of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, 1, Lambeth High Street, London S.E.1, from which it appears that on August 3, 1978, you were before the Central Criminal Court in London on a charge of causing grievous bodily harm to a Mr. David Thompson. You pleaded not guilty. You were made subject to a conditional discharge order for two years, and ordered to pay£50 compensation and£50 costs towards the cost of the prosecution. The council allege that you may have been guilty of such misconduct as to render you unfit to be on the Register of Pharmaceutical Chemists.”
“What was to be relied upon — and the letter makes it perfectly plain — were the facts which lay behind the conviction, namely, the use by these young men of disastrous force upon the body of the injured student. My conclusion is that on the wording of section 13 there was nothing to prevent the allegation of misconduct being supported by the proof of facts which were adduced in the first instance at the Central Criminal Court before Judge Buzzard. There is nothing in section 13 to suggest that the underlying facts in that way should be disregarded. Apart from any other reasons, it seems to me, if it had been intended that not only the conviction but the facts underlying the conviction should be disregarded in any future proceedings, then the Act should have said so and it did not.”
“Under section 12 (1) of the Act of 1948 the conviction of December 13, 1949, was not to be regarded for the purpose of another case as a conviction, and, therefore, the certificate of conviction should not have been accepted in evidence, but evidence would have been admissible by a witness who had heard the appellant confess in court to the charge of having been found in possession of housebreaking implements or had heard him convicted of that offence and conditionally discharged.”
“It was therefore not open to the committee whose duty it was to review the conduct of the appellant to proceed upon the footing that he had been convicted of a crime. It was for them to determine after due inquiry whether he had been guilty of infamous conduct in any professional respect and, if they so determined, then, if they saw fit, to direct the registrar to erase his name from the register.”
“ … their Lordships must state the legal effect of a statute such assection 16(1)(a) of the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 , 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 637 , 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.”
“(1) Any person who without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, the proof whereof shall lie on him, has with him in any public place any offensive weapon shall be guilty of an offence, … … (4) In this section …“offensive weapon” means any article made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person, or intended by the person having it with him for such use by him or by some other person.”
“8. [The events] relate to the night of10th March 2018 . It was a difficult time; following a family tragedy two years before, his teenage daughter developed behaviour and lifestyle problems, including drug taking. That night, she arrived home very late, dishevelled, distraught and apparently intoxicated by drugs. She went to bed and fell into deep sleep. Her phone rang persistently. Eventually, Mr Wray answered it. The caller was unknown to him (he later discovered it was a young man with whom his daughter was in a relationship). The phone conversation was shocking; the caller said he had attacked and hurt Mr Wray’s daughter and would do it again. The caller suggested Mr Wray come to meet him locally, there and then, to discuss matters “man to man”. 9. Mr Wray did so. He said afterwards how much he regretted it. But he said he was highly distressed and fearful about his daughter’s state, anxious to know more about her intoxication. He could not wake her. He had extensive experience mentoring young people and thought he could handle a conversation to find out the facts and decide what to do next. His son tried to dissuade him. But they both set off in the car, the son anxious for his father’s safety. 10. When they approached the place identified by the caller, they were surrounded by a group of young men who began hitting the car. He stopped the car. Inside was some sports kit which Mr Wray used in his regular coaching activities with young people. He picked up a softball bat before getting out of the car. He said he thought it might discourage the group from attacking him and might be needed for self-defence. He did not brandish it, but held it to his side. As soon as the two of them got out of the car, they were set upon. Someone snatched away the bat and hit Mr Wray over the head with it. He needed stitches, and suffered concussion and psychological after-effects I would add that his unchallenged evidence was that he was off work for some months as a result of the attack. . 11. The police saw that Mr Wray had been the victim of an attack and prepared to take a witness statement. He told them everything that had happened. When the police heard about the bat, however, they decided to charge him with having an offensive weapon, contrary toSection 1(1) of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953 . That provides that anyone who, without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, has with them in a public place any offensive weapon is guilty of a criminal offence. By section 1(4), an offensive weapon means ‘any article made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person, or intended by the person having it with him for such use by him’. 12. Mr Wray says his solicitor at the time advised him to contest the charge, but on the day of the first preliminary hearing before the magistrates, the solicitor changed his advice at the last minute and recommended an early guilty plea. He says he was advised that, having admitted to possession of the bat, he faced a prison sentence after a contested trial. He had moments to decide, and went with the new advice. He pleaded guilty as charged. There was no other evidence before the magistrates. They accepted his plea and gave him a six-month conditional discharge. 13. Preparing for his PCC hearing a few months later with a new legal team, he was told that the advice to plead was wrong, and he had had a perfectly good defence to the charge all along. … 14. He applied to appeal his conviction, on the basis that his plea was equivocal and he had been wrongly advised. His application was rejected as being too far out of time.”
“The allegation is that Mr Wray (the Registrant) has been guilty of Unacceptable Professional Conduct, contrary toSection 20(1)(a) of the Osteopaths Act 1993 , in that: 1. On10 March 2018 , at Genotin Road, Enfield, EN1, without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, the Registrant had with him in a public place an offensive weapon, namely a softball bat, contrary toSection 1(1) of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953 . 2. On27 February 2019 , at Highbury Corner Magistrates Court, the Registrant pleaded guilty to the above offence and; a. was conditionally discharged for a period of 6 months; and b. made to pay a surcharge of£20 to fund victim services.”
“a conditional discharge does not constitute a conviction for the purpose of Section 22 of the Act. … The [PCCSA] section 14 confirms that a conditional discharge “shall be deemed not to be a conviction for any purpose other than the purposes of the proceedings in which the order is made… .””
“8. The fact that the Registrant received a conditional discharge is accepted. The matter of whether or not he carried an offensive weapon contrary to the legislation is controversial but the Registrant accepts that he cannot deny that he did plead guilty at the Highbury Magistrate’s Court in 2018 following his then lawyer’s advice. 9. The Registrant accepts that he now cannot go behind that decision and that pleading.”
“16. The Registrant accepts that he was holding, at one time, the soft ball bat. 17. He accepts that he was traumatised by the knowledge that his daughter may have been [assaulted] or at least drugged. He acted out of instinct as a father and went to see the man who claimed to have assaulted his daughter. 18. There is no evidence apart from uncorroborated, unsigned, unsworn statements that the Registrant did anything other than attend where his daughter’s alleged assailant was situated and he was attacked and badly injured. He does not deny that he pleaded guilty, although wrongly in hindsight, to carrying a weapon.”
“1. The Registrant has admitted to the factual allegations 1 and 2 but not to [UPC]. 2. [The Registrant] accepts what is said [in the Council’s skeleton argument summary of the facts under the heading “Allegation”] save that he … says he held the bat to his side. [The Registrant] recognises that his attempt to appeal the decision of the Court was refused so he has to accept allegation 1 therefore for that reason recognising that he cannot go behind the decision to conditionally discharge [him].”
“even when a Criminal Court has given a practitioner an absolute or conditional discharge for the offence, the facts underlying the “conviction” may nevertheless be adduced in evidence in disciplinary proceedings to support an allegation that the practitioner’s fitness to practise is impaired by reason of misconduct.”
“31. I was scared for both of us, my son and I. In the back of my car … was a softball bat which I used in my sports coaching. I reacted automatically in seeing that we were being attacked. I grabbed the bat as a deterrent to defend myself if necessary. It was an instant reaction. I did not feel I could drive on. I got out as did my son. 32. I was holding the bat half way down the shaft and at my side (not swinging it) so that it was not threatening. I see the police have noted that I was pointing the bat. I do not recall I was. I was concussed by the assault upon me and my memory is not the best that it could be. I know that I went forward and asked if one of the men was “T” and, at this point, my son stepped in front of me to protect me. He started talking to the men and, as I leaned forward to talk to them, one of them grabbed the bat from me and proceeded to attack me by hitting me over the head with the bat and kicking me in the face as I fell. 33. I did not even have the chance to defend myself. It was never my intention to fight. 34. I repeat the softball bat [was] as a deterrent and to protect myself if necessary. There was not any thought of using it as an offensive weapon.”
“Professionally I accept that I should have reported the conversation to the police or even taken my daughter to a police station. Unfortunately one cannot retrace one [sic] steps and certainly I hope never to face this terrible experience again.”
“11. On arriving at the location … the Registrant got out of his car when he was prevented from driving on by a small group of young men, who had been hitting the car. He armed himself with the bat on the spur of the moment as a deterrent and in an effort to diffuse [sic] a potentially aggressive situation. He acknowledged that there were about a dozen members of the public nearby who were customers of a wine bar.”
"30. The Committee was advised in relation to 3 further points following further submissions by both parties as to the Law. First, it was advised that the criminal offence of possession of an offensive weapon was not an offence involving violence, but that the definition of an offensive weapon as a matter of law was as follows: "any article made or adapted for use to cause injury to the person, or intended by the person having it with him for such use."
“the allegation may not use the word “conviction”, but since it recites charge, plea and sentence, it might as well have done so.”
“Mr Faux says on behalf of the GOsC that the effect of s. 14 is only to wipe away the status of conviction as such – so for example if a prospective employer asks about convictions, nothing need be said – but not to wipe away the historical facts of the underlying criminal process. I was shown no authority for that proposition, and it is on the face of it surprising. The plain words of s. 14 entitle someone to be treated, not least in an employment or professional context, as not convicted. If that could be got around by indirect allusion to conviction, including by reference to the spent conditional discharge itself, it would be set at naught. The allegation in this case clearly identifies Mr Wray as convicted. On the face of it, that disregards his legal protections.”
“30. Mr Faux, however, says all of this is nothing to the point. It is, he says, clear as a matter of law and public policy that the PCC was not only entitled, but obliged, to rely on [the Registrant’s] guilty plea. It (and he) was bound by it and unable to go behind it. It would have been wrong to take any other course (such as requiring the [Council] to adduce evidence of the underlying components of the criminal offence). … 31. [The Registrant] expressly invited the PCC to go behind his plea. He said it was a mistake, explained how it happened, and recounted his unsuccessful efforts to undo it via an appeal. There is no sign in the PCC decision, nor in what exists of the transcript, that they took any notice. Mr Faux says that is just as it should be. 32. It is certainly so in conviction cases. The authorities have consistently held that where statutory provision is made for disciplinary bodies to attach professional consequences to a criminal conviction, the effect of the statute has been to preclude the practitioner from denying the truth of any facts necessarily implied in the conviction. In such cases, the decision of the disciplinary body 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 (Kirk v The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons 2004 WLUK 267 , paragraph 6; …). That includes cases where conviction is based on a guilty plea …. Additional evidence about the underlying facts on which the conviction is based may be adduced and relied on in relation to the disciplinary consequences, provided the facts are not inconsistent with the finding that the practitioner was guilty of the offence. What the practitioner cannot do is to relitigate the conviction as to the facts. 33. That is why regulatory regimes, including the one in this case, make special provision for conviction cases. It is both unnecessary and undesirable to re-try a criminal case – unnecessary where the facts have already been pleaded and established to the criminal standard, and undesirable because of the public interest in the finality of criminal procedure. The only issue left for a disciplinary body is the relevance of conviction and sentence to the professional standing of the participant. 34. But this was not a conviction case. Mr Faux says that the same consequences nevertheless flow from a guilty plea in its own right. I was not shown any authority to that effect. … 35. … Nor is it obvious how Mr Faux’s argument survives s. 14 of the 2000 Act and the public policy expressed there. The effect he seeks to attach to the guilty plea does not in truth attach to the plea itself but to its acceptance – that is, to the conviction and the presumed irrevocability of the plea that that creates. 36. In this case, there had been no trial. No facts had been established to the criminal standard, or even appeared from a prosecution case. Unlike Samuel, there was no detailed set of factual evidence before the PCC capable of amounting to any criminal offence at all. All there was, was the plea-and-conviction, and the conviction had been wiped away. The PCC seems to have responded by treating [the Registrant’s] case in hybrid fashion. It accepted the plea as conclusive, as it would have done in a conviction case, but in circumstances which left ambiguity as to the precise matrix of facts that it was conclusive of. And unlike in a conviction case, they did not then go on to consider the relevance of the conviction (if any) to [the Registrant’s] fitness to practice [sic]. Instead, they turned to apply the UPC test to the ‘facts’.”
“47. In all of these circumstances, I conclude that the PCC’s conduct of [the Registrant’s] hearing was seriously irregular. The Rules may not spell out how to handle a case involving a spent conviction based on an early guilty plea which is subsequently renounced. Perhaps such circumstances are rare. But I consider that the hybrid procedure adopted by the PCC is excluded by the express provision made in the Rules, and that it was unfair, for the following reasons. 48. In bringing this as a UPC case, the PCC must have accepted that it was not open to them to bring a conviction case because of the 2000 Act and the public policy considerations underlying it. Yet without using the word ‘conviction’, the allegation made was in terms of charge, plea and sentence, necessarily implying conviction. That is in substance an allegation of conviction which is in my view contrary to the letter and spirit of the 2000 Act and unfair to [the Registrant]. 49. Putting charge-plea-sentence to [the Registrant] as a set of facts at the opening stage of UPC procedure created a situation of real ambiguity as to the ‘facts’ with which [the Registrant] was being invited to agree. His witness statement and consistent evidence under questioning did not agree that he had acted at any time with intent to injure or without good reason. Fixing him with actual agreement to diametrically opposite ‘facts’ by inductive reasoning from the recitation of statute in the allegation is not something which I am satisfied was explained, understood or fair – or reflected in the decision. 50. Fixing him with deemed agreement as a legal consequence of his guilty plea – regardless of his evidence that the plea was equivocal - is for the reasons set out above tantamount to treating this as a conviction case. As explained, I am not convinced that there is a legal duty or power, or an underlying public policy reason, for the PCC to do that. Nor does it appear to have made clear to [the Registrant] that that is what it was doing. 51. In any event, unlike a conviction case, the PCC had no proven facts or prosecution case before it, and indeed no factual evidence capable of adding up to criminal conduct at all. It had only the bare plea. So again, there was no clear factual basis, particularly as to intention or reasonable excuse, on which it could anyway have proceed[ed] to the evaluative stage of a conviction case as to the seriousness of the offence and relevance to [fitness to practise]. 52. At the second stage, the PCC appeared to be trying simultaneously to apply conviction case and UPC case evaluation processes. Those evaluative processes are in my view mutually exclusive. For a UPC case, [the Registrant] was entitled to the application of the legal tests to facts either agreed or properly established against him at a prior fact-finding stage. For a conviction case, he was entitled [to] submit factual and personal mitigations and make submissions on relevance to fitness to practise. These are entirely distinct procedures for fact-finding, for different purposes and addressed to different legal tests, As it was, the PCC engaged in a degree of further fact-finding; reached factual conclusions adverse to Mr Wray, on no recognisable evidential basis and without explanation as to reasoning or relevance; adopted inconsistent findings; and did not clearly apply the UPC test by standing back and objectively considering the case as a whole. Instead it rooted its conclusion in the (assumed) criminal character of the conduct, without applying the specific test of relevance which would have been applied in a conviction case. 53. In other words, the hybridity of the procedure in this case gave [the Registrant] the worst of both worlds. For that reason, its finding of unacceptable professional conduct cannot fairly be allowed to stand.”
“59. On the assumption, however, that a UPC allegation was properly brought against [the Registrant], then on the factual case as set out in his witness statement and substantially accepted, and uncomplicated by inductive reasoning from the criminal context, the tests of moral opprobrium amongst the public, and deplorability within the profession, would fall to be applied straightforwardly to the whole affair. 60. As to the former, I cannot see how the test is met. At worst, a fair-minded observer might conclude that [the Registrant] had been foolish and ill-advised to rush out that night, contrary to his son’s advice and leaving his daughter unattended, and without seeking the help of emergency services. An observer might also conclude that he had been foolish and ill-advised to get out of the car and face a gang. The observer might think the same thing about picking up the bat. The observer might, especially, think he had been foolish and very ill-advised to plead guilty to a criminal offence if he had a proper defence to the charge. But in the absence of any other information, the observer would in my view be likely to think no worse than that of him, to share the substantial degree of sympathy the PCC expressed for his plight in the whole circumstances of his story, and to be baffled by an invitation to discern grounds for moral opprobrium. 61. As to the judgment of other members of [the Registrant’s] profession, here above all it is important to acknowledge a necessary degree of humility. However, for conduct to be regarded as deplorable in an osteopath, and at least worthy of admonishment - especially where it is not in the conduct of his professional functions and where his identity as an osteopath was irrelevant and probably unknown – it has to cross a threshold of seriousness and of risk of damage to the reputation of the profession. In my view, while Mr Wray’s conduct may be thought ill-judged and regrettable in a professional, and was apparently regretted, there were extenuating circumstances. ‘Deplorable’ would seem an unjustifiably exaggerated response in all the circumstances. I do not see on what basis the threshold can fairly be said to have been crossed.”