Neale Haddon v United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy

Where a private professional body exercises disciplinary powers under contract, its decision-making must satisfy implied requirements of rationality and natural justice. In a quasi-judicial disciplinary context, rationality requires the panel to consider material evidence judicially. It must guard against excessive reliance on subjective impressions, balance oral impressions against documentary evidence, and avoid findings unsupported by evidence. Fairness may require the registrant to have an opportunity to address adverse interpretations of ambiguous material.

For sexual motivation, it is unnecessary to separate pursuit of immediate gratification from pursuit of a future sexual relationship. Sexual motivation is established if a desire for a sexual relationship was a factor in the conduct. A sanction decision may be tainted where findings on insight, remediation and repetition risk were reached through unfair or irrational treatment of the evidence.

The claimant, a psychotherapist, challenged by a contractual claim the termination of his registration by the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy. The Adjudication Panel found that he had engaged in sexually motivated and unprofessional conduct involving a former client, found misconduct and impairment, and imposed termination of registration. The Appeal Panel corrected several unsupported findings but upheld the essential conclusions and sanction.

The claimant alleged that the panels had acted irrationally and unfairly in finding the conduct sexually motivated, assessing his insight and repetition risk, evaluating evidence from his mentor and employer, and imposing termination. The central issues were the proper meaning of sexual motivation and the standard governing a contractual disciplinary decision by a quasi-judicial professional body.

1. The claim succeeded in part. The implied contractual terms required the Defendant to exercise its disciplinary powers rationally, in the Wednesbury sense, and in accordance with natural justice. The court applied the principles governing judicial review to the contractual exercise of discretion.
2. The Adjudication Panel was entitled to find that the hug was sexually motivated. Sexual motivation did not require proof that sexual gratification was obtained from the hug itself, or that pursuit of a future sexual relationship was the exclusive explanation. It was enough that the desire for a sexual relationship was a factor in the conduct. The surrounding circumstances, including the prior discussion of attraction and the suggestion that the parties might meet after therapy, supported the finding.
3. It was unnecessary and unhelpful to divide sexual motivation into two hermetically sealed categories of immediate gratification and pursuit of a future relationship. The allegation could be determined at the level of the overarching concept of sexual motivation.
4. In the quasi-judicial context, the Wednesbury requirement to consider material matters required the panel to assess evidence judicially. The panel had to guard against excessive reliance on the registrant’s demeanour or the panel’s subjective impression, and had to balance that impression against documentary evidence and the words actually used. It also had to act fairly, give a registrant a fair opportunity to address material adverse interpretations, and make factual findings supported by evidence.
5. The Adjudication Panel failed those requirements in its treatment of insight, remediation and repetition risk. It treated mitigation as denial or blame, relied on an ambiguous phrase which had not been put to the claimant, gave insufficient weight to the evidence of Dr Wilkinson, the claimant’s employer and the Interim Orders Panel, and made unsupported or unfair findings. The Appeal Panel’s correction of some factual findings illustrated the same failure to act judicially.
6. Those errors tainted the sanction decision. The court did not decide that termination was unavailable: sexual misconduct shortly after therapy, and conduct intended to keep open a future sexual relationship, could justify termination under the Indicative Sanctions Guidance. The sanction was remitted for reconsideration by a new Adjudication Panel.

First-instance contractual claim. The judgment records decisions by the Defendant’s Adjudication Panel and Appeal Panel, but no appeal to a court below the present decision.