RICHTER v WALTON [1993] NSWCA 234

RICHTER v WALTON SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES — COURT OF APPEAL

MAHONEY JA 17 May 1993

[1993] NSWCA 234

Mahoney JA. This is an application in an appeal lodged by a doctor against an order that his name be removed from the Roll of Medical Practitioners and other orders made by the Medical Tribunal.

The application before the court is an application for an order that the effect of, as I will describe it, the deregistration order be stayed pending a determination of the appeal. The application was put, and again I state the matter generally, upon the ground that the offence which was found against him was a single offence and, as it was described, a 'one-off' offence which was unlikely to be repeated. The doctor stated that pursuant to the stay arrangements made at the Tribunal special procedures have been set up in relation to the continuation of his practice which would ensure, it is suggested, that there be no repetition of the matters in question. Reference was made to medical treatment which the doctor is following relevant to the particular matter. I amstating these matters in general terms and I am not descending unnecessarily to particulars.

When the application came before the court, Mr Sexton for the respondent tendered an affidavit to which were annexed notes of statements made by three people who have been patients of the doctor. The material consists of copies of notes made by an interviewer of statements made by those three patients. One of them, Mr Tobias says, is still a patient of the doctor.

The statements which have been made, if they be evidence of the facts, and this of course is an interlocutory application, might provide the basis for inferences that the incident was not a 'one-off incident and therefore the basis on which the present application has been made would be affected.