Case Reference: FT/D/2025/1421
Transport
Heard by: Cloud Video Platform
Before
JUDGE SCHERBEL-BALL
Between
SIMON BARNETT
Appellant
and
REGISTRAR OF APPROVED DRIVING INSTRUCTORS
Respondent
Representation: The Appellant represented himself.
Ahtiq Raja represented the Registrar.
Decision: The appeal is allowed.
REASONS
The Appeal
This is an appeal against a decision of the Registrar of Approved Driving Instructors (“the Registrar”) made on 2 December 2025 (the “Decision”) to revoke the Appellant’s trainee licence to give paid instruction for a pupil pursuant to s.130(5) of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (the “Act”). The reason for this decision was that the Registrar did not consider the Appellant to be a “fit and proper person” to have his name, in principle, on the Register of Approved Driving Instructors (the “Register”).
The Registrar reached the Decision because the Appellant had acquired nine penalty points on his driving licence as a result of two offences:
An offence of speeding on 29 August 2024, when the Appellant drove at 36 MPH in a 30 MPH speed limit, for which the Appellant acquired three penalty points (the “First Offence”); and
An offence of failing to give information as to the identity of a driver pursuant to s.172 of the Road Traffic Act 1998 in May 2025 for which the Appellant acquired six penalty points (the “Second Offence”).
For the reasons I set out in this judgment, I consider the Decision to be plainly wrong and I have allowed the appeal. I am properly satisfied that the Appellant is a fit and proper person, in principle, to be admitted to the Register of Approved Driving Instructors (the “Register”) if he otherwise completeness the mandatory training requirements.
The appeal against the Decision was brought on 12 December 2025. The grounds of appeal can be summarised as follows:
The Appellant had been convicted of the Second Offence because he had not received the original notice requiring him to give details of the identity of the driver. This is because he had recently removed home and his Royal Mail “redirect” service (which in any event had proved unreliable) had expired. The Appellant had informed the DVSA of his change of address for his driving license but had failed to change the registered address of his vehicle’s V5C registration.
The underlying incident in relation to the Second Offence involved the Appellant’s vehicle, while being driven by a student, potentially driving too close to a cyclist. The Appellant admitted the Second Offence and accepted responsibility for failing to provide the requested information. The Appellant is a keen cyclist himself. The error of instructional ability came about because the Appellant was under considerable pressure and had only recently started giving instructional lessons. He received no conviction as a result of the underlying incident, only the failure to provide details of the driver.
His specific personal circumstances had placed additional pressures on the Appellant. Having regard to the Article 8 ECHR rights of privacy of the Appellant’s family, these issues are more fully addressed in the Confidential Annex to this judgment. The Confidential Annex shall not be published online and must not be disclosed or published beyond the parties themselves save to (a) any legal representatives instructed in relation to these proceedings or (b) to the Appellant’s own family. I make an order to that effect pursuant to r.14(1) of the GRC Rules, being satisfied that (a) such disclosure would be likely to cause serious harm to the Appellant’s family and (b) having regards to the interests of justice it is proportionate to do make such an order. This modification to the open justice principle is limited and is no more than is necessary to protect the rights of third parties who are not party to these public proceedings. As this order has been made without notice to the parties, they may apply to vary it within 21 days of receiving this judgment.
The Appellant is the main financial provider for his family.
Another contributing factor to the Appellant’s stress and lack of judgment was an unrelated court hearing.
The Appellant has testimonials and support from his driving school owner, his instructor and from his pupils.
The Appeal was opposed by the Registrar on 6 March 2026. The Registrar contends that his decision was justified on the following grounds:
The Appellant’s licence was endorsed with nine penalty points as a result of the First and Second Offences.
The conditions for entry onto the Register extend beyond instructional ability alone and require that the applicant is a fit and proper person. Account is therefore to be taken of a person’s character, behaviour and standard of conduct. The standard of driving and behaviour is expected to be significantly above that of an ordinary motorist. The Registrar states “in committing this offence [sic] I do not believe that the appellant has displayed the level of responsibility or commitment to improving road safety that I would expect to see from an ADI.”
The government has increased the payment levels for serious road offences such as speeding given the very serious consequences of such offences for the safety of road users. As a result, the Register “does not consider that he can condone motoring offences of this nature. To do so would effectively sanction such behaviour, if those who transgress were allowed entry onto an official Register that allows them to teach others. It would be offense to other ADIs and persons trying to qualify as ADIs, who had been scrupulous in observing the law, for me to ignore these motoring convictions.”
The parties both developed their arguments in submissions filed in advance of the hearing.
In his bundle filed on 13 May 2025, the Appellant relied on the Upper Tribunal’s decision in RADI v G [2019] UKUT 230 (AAC), where the Upper Tribunal had dismissed an appeal against an FTT’s decision to reinstate an approved driving instructor (an “ADI”) to the Register when the ADI had acquired 10 points. The Appellant contended that this demonstrated that the Tribunal could have regard to his character, history and the specific circumstances of a relevant offence when considering whether they were a fit and proper person. He also relied on the fact that he had reported the Second Offence to the DVSA promptly.
The Registrar developed his opposition to the Appeal in his skeleton argument filed less than an hour before the hearing (as described further below). In this document, the Registrar contended:
The appeal concerns a safety-critical regulatory regime. The statutory purpose is not punitive but protective (see by analogy Bolton v Law Society [1993] EWCA Civ 32, where the Court of Appeal emphasised that “the reputation of the [legal] profession is more important than the fortunes of any individual member.” The Registrar’s obligations extend beyond consideration of individual hardship and require maintenance of public confidence in the profession and the wider road safety regime.
The Second Offence was particularly serious in the context of the regulation of driving instructors. Failure to identify a driver is not merely an administrative oversight. It frustrates enforcement of a road traffic law. The original “allegation” concerned an incident during a driving lesson where the vehicle passed too close to a cyclist which was “highly material” context, since driving instructors are expected to model safe conduct and responsible supervision of learners.
The Appellant had failed to update his V5C registration, statutory notices were not responded to, a criminal conviction followed, and the Appellant accumulated nine points while seeking authorisation to teach learner drivers professionally.
The Registrar considered the Appellant’s personal circumstances, but “sympathy cannot displace the statutory obligation to maintain standards within a safety-critical profession.”
The decision was proportionate because it pursued legitimate aims and the decision was rationally connected to those aims, and the Registrar considered all representations before reaching a conclusion. Revocation of the Appellant’s licence was therefore proportionate and proceeded within the range of reasonable regulatory responses open to the Tribunal.
The Hearing
The hearing was listed to held by CVP at 14.00 on 19 May 2026. The Appellant attended in person and was supported by his witness, Mr Anthony Johnson. Mr Johnson owns the driving instructor school at which the Appellant has been learning. Mr Ahtiq Raja attended on behalf of the Registrar.
Each party was given an opportunity to raise questions of the other. I am satisfied that it was appropriate and fair to hold the hearing in this way.
There is an important procedural matter however which I must address at this point. Less than 40 minutes before the hearing was due to start, at 13:23, Mr Raja for the Registrar emailed the Tribunal, in copy to the Appellant, with his skeleton argument as part of a 49-page bundle which contained two authorities and information from the DVSA’s website.
I considered the exceptionally late provision of this material by the Registrar, not least with an unrepresented appellant, to be outside the ambit of reasonable conduct of Tribunal proceedings and did not accord with the overriding objective. When I raised concerns with Mr Raja at the outset of the hearing, he asserted that this skeleton argument and bundle had been supplied at the earliest possible opportunity because Mr Raja (a) does not work on Fridays, (b) had only received the Appellant’s bundle of evidence on 18 May 2026, and (c) had other “more pressing” matters to address on 18 May 2026. I reject this submission for the following reasons:
The Appellant had sent his bundle to the Registrar by email late in the evening of 13 May 2026. The Registrar would have been able to pass it to the relevant internal department on 14 May 2026. This was Thursday, a day on which Mr Raja works. It is a matter for the Registrar if he has inadequate systems in place to ensure that documents for hearings are not directed promptly to the relevant individuals.
Reliance on other purportedly more pressing matters is plainly an inadequate reason for the delay in this case. No explanation was given by Mr Raja as to why these other matters were more pressing.
A material amount (but not all) of the evidence which the Appellant had filed on 13 May 2026 had previously been lodged with the appeal; it was reordered for clarity and explanation. Insofar as it contained any new material, this was largely to evidence assertions which the Appellant had previously made.
There was no reason why the authorities and arguments relied on by Mr Raja could not have been addressed in the Registrar’s response which had been filed in March 2026. They did not depend on the Appellant’s evidence.
The filing of the skeleton argument at such a late stage was in plain defiance of the Tribunal’s order of 13 February 2026 which had directed that skeleton arguments “must” be filed no later than 5 working days before the hearing, and which made clear that the “Tribunal may refuse to accept documents that are filed less than 5 working days before the hearing”.
When filing the bundle so shortly before the hearing, Mr Raja himself had acknowledged and apologised for the “late submission”. This reflected what Mr Raja knew all along, namely they were late, and exceptionally so.
The filing of these documents at such at late stage with an unrepresented litigant risked disrupting the fair and efficient conduct of this hearing. The Appellant confirmed that he had not had adequate time to consider the contents which was hardly surprising in the circumstances. It was fortunate that I had had the opportunity to consider them in outline before the hearing during the lunch break. Had the hearing been at any other time of the day, it would have been most unlikely the Tribunal would have been able to consider the documents filed at such a late stage.
I was also conscious that the Appellant had himself applied for the hearing of this appeal to be adjourned from 19 May 2026 to a date in June 2026 and that this had been refused by Judge Armstrong-Holmes on 30 April 2026. The Judge had emphasised the importance of prompt determination of the appeal given that it related to a serious matter.
In all, I considered the Registrar’s filing of these late documents to be unreasonable and plainly below the standard which the Tribunal was entitled to expect from the regulator. It risked derailing and adjourning the hearing which, as should have been obvious to the Registrar from the basis on which the appeal was grounded, was a matter of considerable stress to the Appellant who was unrepresented.
Having regard to the overriding objective, and as a matter of case management, I considered that the appropriate and fair approach was not to adjourn the hearing, but to allow the Registrar to rely on these late documents in principle. However, I indicated to the Appellant that if at the end of the hearing, I considered I needed to give him an opportunity to make written submissions in response, I would give him that opportunity. Ultimately, I concluded that this was not necessary and indicated at the end of the hearing that I did not need any further written submissions from the Appellant.
The law
Conditions for entry and retention on the Register require the Applicant to be and continue to be a “fit and proper person” to have his name on the Register – see sections 125(3) and 127(3)(e) of the Act. The “fit and proper person” requirement applies also to trainee ADI licences by virtue of s.129(2)(b) of the Act.
Pursuant to s.130, the Registrar can revoke a trainee licence issued under s.129 of the Act if the Registrar is satisfied that the trainee licence holder is no longer a fit and proper person to have his name (in due course) in the Register. S.130(3) – (5) sets out the procedure to be followed by the Registrar when deciding whether to revoke a trainee licence.
The powers of the Tribunal in determining this appeal are set out in section 131 of the Act. The Tribunal may make such order as it thinks fit (section 131(3)). The Tribunal stands in the shoes of the Registrar and takes a fresh decision on the evidence available to it, giving appropriate weight to the Registrar’s decision as the person tasked by Parliament with making such decisions (in accordance with R. (Hope and Glory Public House Ltd) v City of Westminster Magistrates Court & Ors [2011] EWCA Civ 31).
In Harris v Registrar of Approved Driving Instructors [2010] EWCA Civ 808, [2011] R.T.R. 1 at [30], the Court of Appeal described the “fit and proper person” condition as follows: “..the condition is not simply that the applicant is a fit and proper person to be a driving instructor, it is that he is a fit and proper person to have his name entered in the register. Registration carries with it an official seal of approval…It seems to me that the maintenance of public confidence in the register is important. For that purpose, the Registrar must be in a position to carry out his function of scrutiny effectively, including consideration of the implications of any convictions of an applicant or a registered ADI. This is why there are stringent disclosure requirements. If an applicant or registered ADI fails to disclose convictions or makes a false declaration that he has no convictions, it strikes at the heart of the registration process and the reliability of the register. In my view such conduct is plainly relevant – indeed, highly relevant - to the question whether an applicant is a fit and proper person”.
The standing of the Register could be substantially diminished, and the public’s confidence undermined, if it were known that a person’s name had been allowed to enter or remain on the Register when they had demonstrated behaviours substantially material to the question of fitness. As the Court of Appeal remarked in the context of the legal profession in Bolton v Law Society [1993] EWCA Civ 32, “the reputation of the [legal] profession is more important than the fortunes of any individual member.”
Any decision about whether or not somebody should be listed on the Register (or maintained on the Register involves a balancing exercise that is respectful of an individual’s circumstances, amongst others, including the public importance of maintenance of public confidence in the Register and the Registrar – RADI v C [2019] UKUT 230 AAC at [13].
Evidence and Facts
I have considered (a) the Registrar’s hearing bundle of 32 pages, (b) the Appellant’s evidence bundle of 33 pages and (c) the 49-page bundle filed by the Registrar shortly before the hearing.
I also have heard and considered evidence representations from the Appellant, evidence from his witness, Mr Johnson, and representations from the Registrar during the hearing. The Appellant was the subject of a robust cross-examination from Mr Raja on behalf of the Registrar on a range of issues.
I consider and find that the Appellant was an honest and candid witness, who was trying to assist the Tribunal. His evidence was internally consistent and was almost entirely supported by corroborating documentation. I have no hesitation in accepting his evidence as truthful. Indeed, I did not understand Mr Raja to be ultimately questioning the Appellant’s honesty and if he had, I would have rejected any such submission.
Mr Johnson also gave evidence on behalf of the Appellant. Mr Johnson has been an ADI for 20 years. While some of Mr Johnson’s evidence verged into submission, Mr Johnsons’s main evidence went to the key issue in the case, namely whether the Appellant is a fit and proper person to be entered on the Register if he passes his Part 3 test. Mr Johnson explained that his company had personally subsidised additional training for the Appellant in the hope that the Appellant would pass his Part 3 test which had been due to take place in March 2026, and which Mr Johnson hoped to have used as evidence in support of the Appellant’s appeal to demonstrate his abilities as a driving instructor. Ultimately the test did not go ahead because it was cancelled by the DVSA on the day. Mr Johnson was clear when asked by the Tribunal that he considered the Appellant to have (a) suffered a string of exceptionally unfortunate circumstances, (b) that he considered the Appellant likely to be of real benefit to the industry and (c) that Mr Johnson was satisfied that the Appellant was a fit and proper person to represent his driving school as a driving instructor.
Mr Johnson’s oral evidence was consistent with the terms of a letter he had written in support of the Appellant dated 5 May 2026. Mr Johnson’s letter largely consists of opinion evidence. However, the views which Mr Johnson has formed of the Appellant chime with my view of the Appellant’s situation. Mr Johnson has clearly invested considerable amount of his own time and money supporting the Appellant and that is a factor which the Tribunal is able to take into account in assessing the Appellant’s character in the overall assessment it needs to make.
Having considered all the evidence, applying the civil standard of proof (the balance of probabilities), I have therefore made the following findings of fact on issues which are principally relevant to the issue I have to determine on the Appeal:
It is not in dispute that the Appellant committed the First and Second Offence. Indeed, he pleaded guilty to the Second Offence after he was notified of the charging decision in July 2025. The Appellant has therefore acquired nine “live” penalty points on his licence.
The Appellant moved house in December 2024. He arranged for his post to be directed to his new address until mid-March 2025, but nevertheless he had problems with the Royal Mail redirect service he had arranged. As a result, the Appellant was in regular contact with the purchasers of his old house and would pick up post when he was notified that it had been sent to his old house. He believed that as a result of these exchanges, the subsequent occupiers would notify him of new post addressed to him.
The incident which led to the Second Offence took place on 17 April 2025 at a time when the Appellant was conducting a lesson with a pupil (the “Incident”). It was alleged that during the Incident, the Appellant’s vehicle drove too close to a cyclist causing the cyclist to curse and that this caused concern for the safety of the cyclist. The Appellant was not driving the vehicle at the time. There is evidence before the Tribunal where his pupil seemingly accepts that the pupil was driving the vehicle.
In April or May 2025, a notice was sent by the police requiring the Appellant to identify the driver of the vehicle at the time of the Incident. This notice was sent to the Appellant’s former address because while the Appellant had notified the DVSA of the change of address for his driving licence, he had forgotten to do so in respect of the V5C logbook for his vehicle. The Appellant therefore did not receive the notice and for reasons unknown to him, the purchaser of his former home did not notify him of the letter. I am satisfied that the Appellant never received the notice because (a) it is consistent with the documentary evidence in relation to his move of house and (b) the Appellant had every reason to have notified the police if he had received the letter, since he was not (for the police’s purposes at least) responsible for the actions of his pupil and had no reason not to do so. The evidence in this case shows that the Appellant does report matters promptly to the authorities (as indeed he did when notifying the Registrar of the Second Offence).
Between December 2024 and May 2025, the Appellant was under genuinely exceptional personal pressure due to his personal circumstances, which I find are true. I address this further in the Confidential Annex. For present purposes, I consider that the Appellant has shown remarkable resilience and integrity in his conduct under exceptionally challenging personal circumstances. His failure to notify the change of address of the V5C logbook was entirely inadvertent.
In addition, in early April 2025, the Appellant was under additional pressure because he had been wrongly summonsed for a second driving offence on the first day of the First Offence involving a different vehicle. While he was ultimately acquitted of that other separate matter, the fact of two potential offences and penalty points, coupled with (a) his very long working hours and (b) his personal circumstances meant that he had been signed off his then primary work by a doctor at the time of the Incident. I am satisfied that the primary cause of the stress was the combination of his personal circumstances at the time, including the long hours at his primary job at the time; there was nothing inappropriate in the Appellant’s conduct in this regard as the Registrar appeared to be suggesting at one point in cross-examination.
The Appellant learnt of the criminal proceedings in relation to the Second Offence in July 2025 when the police wrote to him at his new address.
The Appellant admitted the Second Offence at a hearing on 10 November 2025. He did not have and could not afford any legal representation at the time, but took responsibility for the failure to respond and admitted his guilt. He promptly notified the Registrar of the Second Offence on 15 November 2025.
The Appellant understands the importance of cyclist safety on the roads, and indeed himself is a keen cyclist. He has used the Incident (which took place at the very beginning of his practical experience as a driving instructor) to further develop and improve his skills in relation to addressing the safety of cyclists as a driving instructor. This is evidenced in the email of Mr Serwatka, the Appellant’s instructor, dated 11 May 2026.
There are no other concerns relating to the Appellant’s integrity or ability as a provisional driving instructor. He has exceptional references from those who work with him at his driving school and those who work with him. These go above and beyond the ordinary character witnesses which can be deployed in these circumstances and speak to the character and integrity of the Appellant as well as his skills as a provisional driving instructor.
The Appellant was the subject of a robust cross-examination for a material part of the hearing by Mr Raja. Mr Raja admitted that it was robust. While, within appropriate parameters, the manner of cross-examination is a matter for the Registrar and his representative, I considered that the manner and nature of the cross-examination by Mr Raja did not assist the Tribunal for two reasons:
First, I considered that on occasion, Mr Raja put questions to the Appellant which did not accurately reflect the Appellant’s evidence and which I therefore had to (exceptionally) address this during cross-examination in light of the fact that the Appellant was not represented.
Second, the manner of Mr Raja’s cross-examination appeared to have little to do with the Registrar’s own pleaded case as to why he had made the Decision, but rather gave the appearance that Mr Raja was searching around to see if he could find some other reason to justify the Decision or question the Appellant’s integrity.
Discussion and Conclusions
The primary issue I have to decide is whether the Appellant is a fit and proper person to be, in principle, on the Register, if he passes all the requirements of his training. Even allowing an appropriate margin of deference to the Registrar as the specialist regulator charged with Parliament with maintaining the Register, I have concluded that the Decision was plainly wrong, in light of the facts I have found set out above. This is for the following (inter-related) reasons:
First, I accept and endorse the importance of maintaining public confidence in the Register. I have well in mind the principles set out by the Court of Appeal in Harris and Bolton cited at paragraphs 20 and 21 above. However, equally, public confidence in the Register and the Registrar’s position is capable of being undermined by decisions of a regulator which fail to adequately take into account individual circumstances which lead to disproportionate and unjust results. This is such a case. I have concluded that the Decision was (a) wrong, (b) disproportionate, (c) based on inadequate flawed reasons and that far from being offensive to other ADIs and prospective ADIs as the Register suggests, on the facts of this case, it is the revocation of the Appellant’s licence in the circumstances of the case risks undermining public confidence in the maintenance of the Register.
Second, there are a wide variety of circumstances in which a person may accumulate six points on a driving licence. The Registrar emphasised in his submissions that he considered that the accumulation of six penalty points was a “starting point” for removal from the Register or revocation of a trainee ADI’s licence which then required exceptionality to justify an individual being “a fit and proper person”. Such an approach however fails to take into account the specific circumstances in which those points can be acquired in the first place and elevates process above the core substance of the issue, namely whether an individual is a fit and proper person to be, in principle, on the Register. It is therefore apt to give rise to injustice if applied inflexibly and without regard to the underlying specific circumstances. This is such a case where I consider that approach has resulted in precisely such a result.
Third, the reasoning of the Register does not address the specific issues which arise in this case. The Registrar’s decision letter dated 2 December 2025 stated, formulaically, that he has “taken into consideration” the Appellant’s representations, but then fails to address those specific representations at all. The decision letter provides no illumination as to what weight, if any, the Registrar applied to these issues and his evaluation of them. That is then compounded by paragraphs 6 and 7 of the Registrar’s Response to this appeal. While the Registrar states that he “carefully considered these representations”, his reasons as set out at paragraph 7 again do not address them at all. Indeed, they appear to be entirely generic. For example, at paragraph 7(b) the Registrar states “In committing this offence, I do not believe that the appellant has displayed the level of responsibility or commitment to improving road safety that I would expect to see from a potential ADI” (emphasis added). Similarly in paragraph 7(c), the Registrar places great weight on serious road safety offences such as speeding, the requirement to control a vehicle (including mobile phone use), passing red traffic lights, pedestrian crossings and wearing seatbelts, which offences contribute to a significant number of casualties. There are three problems with this generic reasoning:
There are two offences which arise in this case. The reference to an offence in the singular fails to take into account of both offences.
The First Offence is a road safety offence. However, the Registrar was not suggesting that this of itself justified the conclusion that the Appellant was not a fit and proper person to be on the Register. Indeed, by the logic of his own reasoning that six penalty points is the “starting point” for revocation, the Second Offence of itself was sufficient to trigger this “starting point”.
The Second Offence is not itself a road safety offence. It is still a very important matter and can relate to road safety offences, but the reasoning which the Registrar has relied on in is generic and does not actually reflect the nature of the Second Offence.
Accordingly, I have concluded that the reasons given by the Registrar do not on their face support the conclusion which he reached.
Fourth, and most importantly, I am satisfied that the Appellant is a fit and proper person to be, in principle, on the Register and that public confidence will not be diminished by his inclusion on the Register, should he pass the necessary qualifications. I have accepted the Appellant’s evidence as to the inadvertent circumstances which led to the Second Offence. To have made an administrative error in failing to update his V5C logbook is a human error which could have been made by any individual, far less one under the enormous and exceptional pressure the Appellant was facing at the time due to his personal circumstances. I consider that the evidence when taken in the round shows that the Appellant is a fit and proper person; he is an individual who has displayed integrity, respect for the law and driving regulations (with one confined exception in respect of the First Offence) and a commitment to learning his trade as an approved driving instruction in spite of the challenges he has faced in his personal life. He reported the Second Offence very promptly to the Registrar which is consistent with his respect for regulation. He has admitted to and faced up with responsibility for the mistakes he has made, whether inadvertent or not. In this respect I find myself in agreement with the conclusions reached by Mr Johnson in his account to the Tribunal, orally and in writing. The Second Offence is an important matter, but it is not itself a road safety offence. Having regard to the specific circumstances which led to it, those specific facts when judged alongside the First Offence do not justify the conclusion that the Appellant is not a fit and proper person who should not, principle, be included on the Register.
Fifth, I reject the Registrar’s assertion that the Second Offence is “particularly serious in the context of the ADI regime”. It is true that the Incident relates to the safe conduct of road users and a trainee ADI’s ability to model safe conduct. The problem for the Registrar is that this offence was not proven. The Appellant has not been convicted of this offence. There is not sufficient evidence of the actual road safety incident before me to make any conclusions as to the Appellant’s culpability for that matter, although the Appellant himself has stressed that he understands and has sought to learn from it. The Second Offence is a significant and important administrative failure to comply with a legal obligation of importance for all road users and in particular ADIs or prospective ADIs. It is not however a “primary” road safety matter and the two should not be conflated. Indeed, the Registrar appears to accept this in the way he puts his case at paragraph 45 of his skeleton, which does not concern the underlying road safety incident, but rather states that “[the Appellant] failed to update the V5C; statutory notices were not responded to; a criminal conviction followed; and the Appellant accumulated 9 live points while seeking authorisation to teach learner drivers professionally.” The fundamental issue is that the second to fourth consequences have all followed from the first inadvertent administrative mistake.
Sixth, I reject the Registrar’s submissions that taking account of the Appellant’s personal circumstances and the circumstances in which the Second Offence came to be committed amounts to accepting that “sympathy [should not] displace the statutory obligation to maintain standards within a safety-critical profession”. As a general proposition that is correct. However, in this case it misses the point. This case is not about sympathy for the Appellant. It is about having proper and appropriate regard to the specific circumstances in which the Second Offence came to be committed and taking into account those circumstances when considering if the Appellant is, in principle, a fit and proper person to be included on the Register. I consider that this submission exemplifies one of the errors that the Registrar fell into in reaching the Decision. He failed to actually consider and take adequate account of the actual relevance of the circumstances which led to the Second Offence.
Seventh, relatedly, the Decision was entirely disproportionate. The Registrar’s suggestion that the Decision was proportionate is not sustainable. The First Offence of itself was not sufficient to lead to the conclusion that the Appellant was not a fit and proper person. Really it all hinges (albeit taking account also of the First Offence) on the Second Offence. This resulted from the Appellant’s inadvertent failure to update his V5C logbook. It would be grossly disproportionate for him to be barred from his prospective career as an ADI as a result of this, not least having regard to his particular (and exceptional) personal circumstances. The Appellant is the sole earner in his household due to his personal circumstances. To be deprived of an ability to pursue this flexible career in circumstances would have an entirely disproportionate impact on him and his family.
Eighth, even if exceptionality is the required standard to justify maintaining an ADI or prospective ADI on the Register when they acquire six penalty points on their licence, I am satisfied it is plainly met on the specific circumstances which arise in this case. The highly unusual circumstances which led to the Second Offence in the context of the Appellant’s personal circumstances are exceptional and not the norm.
For these reasons, I am satisfied that the Decision was wrong. The Appeal is allowed and the Appellant’s trainee licence should not be revoked on the basis that he is not a fit and proper person to be included on the Register.
Signed: Judge Scherbel-Ball Date: 3 June 2026