The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7502 p585
17 May 2008

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Samuel Ashby allowed to proceed with High Court appeal case despite facing deportation

Samuel Ashby, who was struck off the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Register of Pharmacists for a second time in February 2008 following an attack on a member of the Society’s staff when his first ban was announced in October 2006, is allowed to proceed with his High Court challenge to the first striking off decision without paying into court in advance, a High Court judge has ruled.

Since Mr Ashby is facing deportation to Australia as soon as papers can be arranged, the Society last week sought an order that, as a condition of being allowed to proceed with his judicial review claim, he should be made to pay £17,000 into court as “security” for the Society’s legal costs in preparing for the case.

There is doubt that Mr Ashby will be in the country for the appeal and the Society said it is unlikely to be able to recover these costs once he has been deported. Moreover, the Society added, the case is academic because if he succeeds in overturning his first ban, he will remain struck off from the Register as a result of the second decision (PJ, 1 March 2008, p239).

But the judge Mr Justice William Blair has ruled that making such an order would be likely to have the effect of “stifling” Mr Ashby’s appeal, because he would be unlikely to be able to pay.