Laura Yalda Hindle v The Nursing and Midwifery Council

Professional discipline tribunals determining disputed factual allegations must give rational reasons explaining why one witness’s account is preferred over another’s. Where accounts conflict, the tribunal should assess the general credibility and reliability of the material witnesses and consider all relevant indicators, including inconsistencies, motives, contemporaneous records, cross-examination and contextual evidence.

A charge must be proved by cogent evidence satisfying the balance of probabilities. Findings cannot rest on speculation or a tribunal’s unsupported view of what probably happened. A tribunal should not ordinarily prefer written evidence over evidence given and tested orally where the witness has contradicted or abandoned the written account.

The appellant, a nurse, appealed against findings and sanctions imposed by the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s Fitness to Practise Committee. The Panel found several disputed allegations proved, treated them as misconduct, found current impairment and imposed a six-month suspension, together with an interim suspension order.

The appeal challenged the adequacy of the Panel’s reasoning, its treatment of conflicting witness evidence, its findings of misconduct and impairment, and the sanctions. The central issue was whether the Panel had lawfully explained its preference for the complainant nurses’ evidence over the appellant’s evidence and that of a supporting paramedic.

1. Appeal allowed. The findings on the non-admitted disputed conduct allegations were either wrong or unjust because of serious procedural or other irregularity under CPR 52.21(3).
2. The Panel’s charge-by-charge, siloed approach was legally inadequate. In a case turning substantially on mutually contradictory accounts, the Panel had to assess the general credibility and reliability of the key witnesses and explain why particular evidence was accepted or rejected. It failed to consider the significance of inconsistencies, apparent coordination, possible bias, evasive answers, the destruction or absence of contemporaneous notes, and evidence contradicting some allegations.
3. A witness may be truthful on one matter and unreliable on another. A finding that a witness lied or was mistaken does not automatically require rejection of all that witness’s evidence. Nevertheless, the tribunal must explain how known unreliability affects the weight given to other evidence.
4. The Panel adopted several unsustainable approaches. It preferred written evidence over oral evidence despite contradictions revealed in cross-examination; assumed without adequate basis that the appellant’s evidence concerned a different incident; and inferred misconduct from frustration or a difficult relationship with students. The balance of probabilities does not permit findings based on speculation or “guessology”. Uncorroborated witness evidence must possess sufficient credibility and reliability to satisfy the burden of proof.
5. The Court substituted its own decision. The disputed allegations were found not proved. The appellant’s admitted medication-management failures constituted misconduct, but her fitness to practise was not currently impaired, having regard to the administrative nature of the failures, the absence of patient harm, her subsequent safe practice and the protective rather than punitive purpose of the regulatory regime. No restriction or sanction was imposed.
6. The Court expressed concern that the Panel had given inadequate reasons for the interim suspension order. Panels should identify the feared harm, weigh the competing interests and assess necessity and proportionality, including the impact on the right to appeal. The interim order was not challenged and therefore was not set aside.

• High Court (Administrative Court): Appeal from the decision of the Nursing and Midwifery Council Fitness to Practise Committee. The Court allowed the appeal, substituted findings that the non-admitted charges were not proved, held that current fitness to practise was not impaired, and imposed no restriction or sanction.