Vet's appeal to Privy Council proved successful

Leeds-based veterinary surgeon Dr Gary Samuel has successfully overturned a decision made by the Disciplinary Committee of Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons to remove him from the Register.

Dr Samuel was convicted of theft, common assault and a public order offence at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court in November 2011 following an altercation with a neighbour.

Cardiff Magistrates’ Court sentenced Dr Samuel to concurrent terms of 28 days imprisonment for theft and common assault and 12 weeks imprisonment for the public order offence, all suspended for 12 months. He had also been ordered to carry out 140 hours unpaid work and to pay compensation of £75 and costs of £625.

The Disciplinary Committee agreed that this made him unfit to practise veterinary surgery. However, Dr Samuel believed that the Disciplinary Committee’s sanction of removal from the Register was “disproportionately severe” and launched an appeal.

The Privy Council felt that, in making its decision, the Disciplinary Committee followed too closely the verdict reached by the Magistrates’ Court, and did not take mitigating circumstances sufficiently into account, including whether the attack by Dr Samuel on his neighbour had been provoked by racial abuse.

Delivering the Privy Council’s judgment, Lord Toulson said: “It is apparent from the reasons given by the Committee, both on the question of fitness to practise and on the question of sanction, that it was considerably influenced by the fact that the magistrates imposed a suspended prison sentence.

“Although Dr Samuel pleaded guilty to the theft of the camera and he was not in entitled to go behind his plea, it is nevertheless difficult to understand on the evidence how the prosecution would have proved that there was an intent permanently to deprive [the victim] of it.”