Unsafe Spaces
PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL
Health Professions Council
At
Park House, Kennington
London, SE1 6NX
Tuesday April 7th 2009
IN THE MATTER OF MR HIRSH DEREK GALE
REGISTRATION NO. AS1092
RECORD AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE
CONDUCT AND COMPETENCE COMMITTEE
MR IAN GRIFFITHS
(Chair)
MR PETER HOLLOWAY
(Arts Therapist)
PROFESSOR DAVID CAPLIN
(Lay Partner)
REPRESENTING THE COUNCIL
MS BO-EUN JUNG (KINGSLEY NAPLEY)
LEGAL ASSESSOR
MR SIMON RUSSEN
HEARING OFFICER
MR JAMES BRYANT
The Registrant attended
and was accompanied by a friend
IN PUBLIC SESSION
Transcript of the Stenographic Notes of Ubiqus
Cliffords Inn, Fetter Lane, London EC4A 1LD
Telephone: 0207 269 0370
INDEX
Page No.
DR JOHN ROWAN
Examined by Mr Gale 8
Cross-examined by Ms Jung 17
Questioned by Professor Caplin 18
Questioned by Mr Holloway 20
Questioned by the Chair 22
Further examined by Ms Jung 28
Further examined by Mr Gale 29
PROFESSOR ROBERT THORNE
Examined by Mr Gale 34
Cross-examined by Ms Jung 54
Re-examined by Mr Gale 57
Questioned by Professor Caplin 58
Questioned by Mr Holloway 60
Questioned by the Chair 66
Further examined by Mr Gale 70
MALCOLM RAMSEY
Examined by Mr Gale 74
Cross-examined by Ms Jung 80
Re-examined by Mr Gale 82
Questioned by the Chair 83
Further examined by Mr Gale 83
(The hearing commenced at 10:37 am)
THE CHAIR: Well, good morning, everybody. This is day 11 of the HPC inquiry into the matter of Hirsh Derek Gale. I think I just need to start just by mentioning for the record, today should have been the penultimate day of this matter. However, we have lost the timetable that we were working to unfortunately, because I have been poorly and acting on doctor's orders I have not been able to return to the matter until today. However, the doctor has advised me that I can return. I did actually show him the schedule of Mr Gale had provided and I think his view is that I can start provided I take it easy and gradually go along. So I certainly want to be doing any late days, so the schedule that was laid out seems to be a 10:30 start and a half past 3, 4 o'clock finish, which seems fine.
The other thing I just need to say for the record that we will need to do, obviously we have got an extra day next Wednesday which wasn't in the original timetable. We will need to find from somewhere four days or maybe four days and a reserve day just to finish this particular matter. In view of my holiday and another holiday for another member of the Panel we are not able really to look at those days until sort of end of May, beginning of June. So it is my intention that either today or tomorrow you will be presented with -- or not presented with, but we will agree when we can get those four days on mutually agreed terms. So it is unlikely that this matter will be finally resolved until sometime towards the end of May, beginning of June. I'm sorry, but I am afraid it would have been -- had I have returned, we would not have been finishing this matter for another couple of months, I can assure you, so it is probably for the best it has gone this way. Having said that, we have received I think all the people, your timetable, so we need to proceed.
MR GALE: There's just one slight change, that MG has swapped with SD.
THE CHAIR: Oh, OK. I don't think that's any problem. The other thing, I am sorry, Mr Gale, I should have just brought this up; having not really had any conversation for the last two weeks, we do have one slight worry over your timetable; and that is Mr Lenkiewicz, who I understand will be giving evidence by telephone, I have read. It wasn't so much that. It was just the length of time that you have allocated to him, which is an hour; and, in conversations this morning with my colleagues, it is likely that there would be a few questions for Mr Lenkiewicz; and I don't know whether -- I presume Ms Jung is likely to have some questions for him. Whether an hour is likely to be long enough and whether he would be prepared to be on the end of a phone for longer than an hour or to, as he's on the end of the telephone, maybe we could, as it were, cut him in, if that is the right word, with the other day so that we do have an adequate length of time with him. I don't know whether that would be possible?
MR GALE: Well, I can tell you what he said.
THE CHAIR: Right.
MR GALE: Which is he's currently receiving treatment for a cancer.
THE CHAIR: Right.
MR GALE: Which is why he didn't feel able to repeat the procedure of changing his day in Wales.
THE CHAIR: Right.
MR GALE: And he says he has an hour free on that day.
THE CHAIR: Right.
MR GALE: Obviously, I won't be asking him very much.
THE CHAIR: OK.
MR GALE: Because we are going to have a very limited period of time, and I discussed with him at length the probability of him coming and he said, "look, you know, I'm having this treatment, it's obviously tiring".
THE CHAIR: Thank you.
MR GALE: And I mean it's nobody's fault.
THE CHAIR: No.
MR GALE: But he went, he tried this process of moving his work and he said it was just too exhausting to try and do again. So I don't really know what to say.
THE CHAIR: Right. Well, I wasn't aware of all the circumstances, but thank you for clarifying the matter. Well, I think we will just have to cross that bridge when we come to it then.
MR GALE: All that I have just said to you was with his permission. I asked him whether it was all right to tell you that.
THE CHAIR: OK.
MR GALE: I'm very sorry, I don't know what else to suggest.
THE CHAIR: No, no. Well, to be honest, nor do I, Mr Gale. I think we are just going to have to play that by ear tomorrow. No pun intended.
MR GALE: Thank you.
MS JUNG: Sir, could I flag up an issue this morning?
THE CHAIR: Yes.
MS JUNG: Events unfolded yesterday resulting in some evidence that the HPC thinks is significant and the Panel ought to have before them. A statement is being taken from one of the witnesses that you have heard from already, this morning. So in due course the HPC will be applying to reopen their case to adduce further evidence that came to light yesterday, but it is just to flag that up at this stage so you are aware that there will be an application and, presumably, objections from Mr Gale in due course. But I will provide you with an update when I have one, sir.
THE CHAIR: Right, OK.
MS JUNG: I have spoken to --
THE CHAIR: Is that likely to be today then?
MS JUNG: Sir, I understand that Kingsley Napley is hoping to take a statement from that witness this morning.
THE CHAIR: Right.
MS JUNG: And, hopefully, a witness statement will be produced during the course of today. That witness is at the HPC this morning, but I will provide you with an update when I have one.
THE CHAIR: OK. Fine, well, we will have to cross that -- again, cross that bridge when we come to it then.
MS JUNG: Sir, yes.
THE CHAIR: OK, fine.
MR GALE: Except perhaps that might affect the timetable if you decide to allow that.
THE CHAIR: Yes, yes, it could.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Well, that would be one of the factors that would bear in mind upon the Panel deciding whether to allow that, I would imagine.
THE CHAIR: Yes, fine, OK. Let's go then. Your first witness is John Rowan, is that right?
MR GALE: Yes, that's right.
THE CHAIR: And is he Dr Rowan?
MR GALE: Yes.
THE CHAIR: So I shall refer to him as Dr Rowan, or does he want to be initialised?
MR GALE: I am not going to announce his address.
THE CHAIR: No.
MR GALE: But I will ask him whether he wishes be initialised.
THE CHAIR: OK.
MR GALE: I assume those are the witness statements on the table?
MS JUNG: Yes, that is your file.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Shall I turn it?
MR GALE: It might be helpful, mightn't it? According to me, it's 23.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Behind tab 3 in mine, the big tab 3.
MR HOLLOWAY: It runs on from 20, so there's 20 plus 3.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Thank you.
MR GALE: Sir, he is not in the first flash of youth so it may take a moment or two for him to come down.
THE CHAIR: I know how he feels.
DR JOHN ROWAN, AFFIRMED.
THE CHAIR: Dr Rowan, good morning.
THE WITNESS: Good morning.
THE CHAIR: First of all, I would just like to apologise to you. I think you have probably had a date to come along to and a time to give evidence which has been changed a couple of times over the last couple of weeks. That is entirely due to the fact that I was taken poorly in the middle of these proceedings and they had to be suspended for a while. I am now back. So I must apologise to you. It was just events beyond anything that we could do.
THE WITNESS: Thank you.
THE CHAIR: You are going to be asked a number of questions this morning from various people sitting around this table, so I think it is only right that we should introduce ourselves to you so you know who we are and where we are coming from when we ask you the questions. So we will just briefly go around the table. I will start off with myself. My name is Ian Griffiths. I am a lay partner with the Health Professions Council and I am the Chairman of today's hearing. On my left?
MR HOLLOWAY: Peter Holloway. I am the registrant panel member.
THE CHAIR: On my right?
PROFESSOR CAPLIN: I am David Caplin. I am a lay partner.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Good morning. I am Simon Russen. I am the Legal Assessor. I am not part of the Panel so I don't take part in the decisions they have to make. I am a lawyer here to ensure that things proceed appropriately.
THE HEARINGS OFFICER: Good morning. We did meet earlier this morning, but for the record I'm James Bryant, Hearing Officer for the HPC.
MS JUNG: Good morning. I am Bo-eun Jung and I am presenting the case on behalf of the Health Professions Council.
MR GALE: I am Derek Gale as you know, and this is Rosie Martins who's been helping me.
THE CHAIR: If I could ask you, Dr Rowan, if you can keep your voice up so that we can all hear what you say in reply to the questions. And just to point out to you that the gentleman sitting on your immediate left is a shorthand writer and he is taking a shorthand note of everything that's being said today. Should at any time during you giving evidence you feel that you would like a break, please do let me know and that can be arranged.
THE WITNESS: Right.
THE CHAIR: Having said all that, I will pass you over to Mr Gale who will start the questioning off.
DR JOHN ROWAN
EXAMINED BY MR GALE
Q Are you happy to be known by your full name or would you rather be known -- would you rather your name was initialized?
A Name is fine.
Q OK. So are you Dr John Rowan?
A Yes.
Q Thank you. In front of you should be a copy of your statement?
A Right.
Q I'm not going to read out your address, but is the address shown in the statement correct?
A I can't -- oh, yes, there it is here; yes, that's correct, yes.
Q And if you just flip over the page, is this your statement and is that your signature?
A Yes.
Q Are you quite happy with your statement?
A Yes.
Q There's nothing in it you want to change?
A No.
Q OK. I'm going to ask you some questions; then Ms Jung will ask you some questions.
A Right.
Q I have a right after that to clarify anything that I think may need clarifying.
A Right.
Q Then the Panel will ask you questions and then we have that same clarification process again.
A Right.
Q Or the Panel may not. They have the right to. You've laid out your qualifications fully in your witness statement, would it be correct to describe you as a very experienced psychotherapist and perhaps a key figure in the world of psychotherapy and humanistic psychotherapy?
A You could say that.
Q Sorry?
A You could say that.
Q And you're also a prolific writer and lecturer and have also written a standard text on humanistic psychology?
A Yes.
Q Thank you. And you have experience of group and individual psychotherapy?
A Yes.
Q I think, I was trying to work it out the other day, we've known each other for about 25 years and would describe each other as 'friends'; do you think that would affect your evidence today in any way?
A I hope not.
Q Thank you. Would you say that it's true that on most occasions when we meet we discuss our profession in some way or other, either by reference to a book or a particular problem we are interested in?
A Very often.
Q Thank you. And it's true, isn't it, that you sometimes recommend books or articles to me and I read them and sometimes we discuss them, either by Email or in person?
A Yes, that's happened.
Q Particularly, I was thinking of the Lazarus and Zeus books on dual relationships?
A Yes, indeed.
Q And sometimes I send you stuff that I have written and we discuss it?
A Yes.
Q And you mentioned in your witness statement the chapter in 'Controversies in Psychotherapy'?
A Yes, quite.
Q You say in your witness statement, and I'm little embarrassed, that you find me a fascinating and consistently controversial figure, always willing to explain his views and uphold his position. Is that statement in your witness statement, is that based on those meetings that we have had and discussions we have had in the past?
A Yes, and material that I have read of yours.
Q Thank you. I'm going to ask you, because the Panel are -- two out of three them are lay people so they're not experienced in therapy, I'm going to ask you if you can help the Panel a little bit by saying something about the concept of democracy in a group.
A Yes.
Q I don't suppose you recall this, but many years ago when we were discussing a problem that I'd had with a group you advised me always to start with where the group is at. Now in the hearing a question has arisen about the idea of a group being democratic, and the question is: In a democratic group, what happens if the group votes to do something which is illegal? In the case it was -- I mean the group didn't vote, but the question was proposed: What would happen if the group did propose to do something which was illegal? Specifically, in terms of taking drugs. And how would the -- how would you expect the leader to act and still keep the "democratic" nature of the group? I suppose in a way my question is: What do you think are the limits of democracy in a group? It's a very long question but I wanted to give you the context?
A Well, there's no such thing as absolute democracy in a group. The facilitator, the name I prefer for a group leader or group conductor, the facilitator has a responsibility for holding the four walls of the situation, so to speak. It's his responsibility to keep the situation therapeutic and not to allow it to become something other than therapeutic. And everything he does, he or she, is either therapeutic, nontherapeutic or antitherapeutic; and it's his responsibility to keep it to the therapeutic rather than either of the other two. So if he feels that something that's been said or done in the group is not therapeutic, it is his duty to bring it back, so to speak, on to the purpose for which the group is assembled. That is my opinion.
Q Thank you. That's very helpful. I think it would be true to say that we don't agree on everything about how psychotherapy should be conducted?
A Perhaps.
Q But you've still always been interested and sympathetic in my practice. Is that something about the need for people to have the opportunity to choose what sort of therapy they have? Perhaps I'm asking you to say something about the need for a breadth of provision for people to be able to make that choice?
A Yes, I think everybody who comes to a therapy group goes by the general reputation of the group leader, the group history and so forth, in so far as they are able to know what it is; and most people who come to therapy groups in my experience are fairly weary of coming to a group that doesn't suit them or wouldn't suit them; and if they find that the group is one that is not for them, they won't come back, they won't come beck a second time and there's no way of making them come back. So I think the first meeting of somebody coming to a therapy group is always a bit of a testing out kind of situation, where this person is trying to make up their mind, 'is this the right group for me or not?' And that inevitably happens, I think; there's no other way for it to happen.
Q That wasn't one of my questions, but you have raised an interesting issue. What would you say to someone who came to a group for years and years and then suddenly decided it wasn't for them?
A I would think there's something in need of explanation there, something odd that would require some account being given of what's happening there; because it's well-known that there is such a thing as negative transference which could happen in one to one therapy or it can happen in group therapy, where a person comes to the conclusion that the therapist is bad in some way and, from that point on, can see no good in that person. It's well-known that this can happen both in one to one therapy and in group therapy. I've certainly known it happen to people that I know.
Q Thank you. Going back to the issues of breadth of provision, was that what you were thinking about when you were complementary about my chapter in 'Controversies and Psychotherapy", that it offered an alternative?
A I thought it was very open and very explicit and not much doubt about what you were saying or what you meant.
Q Now the Panel has heard from the expert witness that what is important in therapy is the contract, the understood contract between the client and therapist, and what he called "an attempt at informed consent"; would you agree with that?
A Well, it's a tricky matter, the whole thing of consent and contract because it's virtually impossible to give an accurate statement of what's going to happen in the future of a group or of a one to one therapy. It isn't possible to say, well -- well, at least in my experience it's not possible to say, 'week 2, we shall be dealing with your mother; week 4, we shall be dealing with your father; week 6, we shall be dealing with your school; week 7 and 8 we'll be dealing with your uncles and aunts'. That sort of thing is not possible, and so it has to be left a bit open as to what course the therapy or the group is going to take. You can't constrain it too greatly and have a contract which is very specific. I think there are forms of therapy that aim at being more specific, but certainly I wouldn't want to do that and I don't think Mr Gale would want to do that.
Q Thank you. Because you're here and because you're an expert on humanistic psychology, I just wanted to ask you if you could comment on this. Would you say that in humanistic psychology the therapy fits the client, and that is one of the big significant factors in humanistic psychology as opposed to trying to make the client fit the therapy?
A Yes. In fact, one of the sayings in person centred therapy which is fairly central in humanistic approach, the approach of Karl Rogers and others, that the client is the expert on the client. It's a common saying. It's found in virtually every textbook of person centred therapy.
Q And we have had some paid sessions, where I have paid you to talk about my practice, so presumably you know something about it?
A Yes.
Q I wonder if you could say -- you have to be careful on this part of evidence that I don't lead you, which of course I'm not a barrister so I'm sometimes told off; but I was just going to ask you a very open question, which is: What do you think about appropriate self-disclosure by the therapist?
A Well, the whole issue of self-disclosure has been quite controversial and in certain types of therapy all self-disclosure is taboo, but in humanistic psychotherapy it's regarded as being one of the things that you have to take care of and do carefully and well and appropriately; and there's quite a lot of literature on that. There is a whole book I read recently on self-disclosure and I have written on it myself in a book called 'A Therapist's Use of Self', which deals with that amongst other issues. And, basically, it is the responsibility of the therapist to make any self-disclosure he does conform to what I have already said. In other words, it’s therapeutic, nontherapeutic or antitherapeutic. And self-disclosure can be highly therapeutic. It can be very appropriate on occasion. For example, a therapist I know was held up as having committed a fault when the client was talking to her about something very moving and the therapist burst into tears. Now this is a form of self-disclosure, very immediate and very present in the case, and I was able to quote to her boss some research which showed that that kind of self-disclosure was actually very valuable in the process of psychotherapy. It strengthens the bond between therapist and client.
Q Thank you. I think you may have already answered this question, but it's on my list so I better ask you. Do you have a view on why clients might suddenly turn against their therapist, such as Professor Patruska Clarkson has called "the revenge of a patient"?
A Yes. I mean I think of a particular example where a friend of mine who was a therapist was seeing a client regularly, and her mother died in Germany and so she explained to the client that he couldn't see her that week because she would have to go to the funeral. The client regarded this as a complete betrayal of everything that they had done together, took out a complaint against her and, in fact, due to the extraordinary procedure of her employing organisation she was found guilty and had to do some kind of penance. I can't quite remember what it was, but that is the kind of thing that can happen. The client can suddenly regard something which anybody else would regard as quite ordinary or quite minor as a huge insult or a huge mistake or a huge fault, which they should be punished for. And so that's just one example that comes to mind.
Q In asking you this next question I'm not referring to clients I have referred to you, but you've met a number of my clients in what one might call social occasions?
A Mmh.
Q That's correct?
A Yes.
Q Did you ever get the impression that they were confused about their relation with me between the therapeutic and the social?
A No, I can't say it ever came to my notice that anybody was confused or upset, no; no, no, I have not encountered that.
Q And you were at the Gale Centre reopening and gave a presentation.
A Yes.
Q Which was very well received, if I may say. And you saw other people speaking about the Gale Centre?
A Mmh.
Q Can you say anything about the impressions you formed of whether the project was a good idea or not?
A It seemed like quite a triumph, quite an achievement. Everybody who I saw at that event seemed very happy and very enthusiastic about it, as if this was something of an achievement, something marvellous that had been successfully completed.
Q You talk in your book about humanistic psychology and peak experiences.
A Yes.
Q Would you think that might have taken the form for some people as a peak experience?
A I couldn't say.
Q You couldn't say?
A I really couldn't say.
Q Because you said it was a "triumph", that was why I asked you?
A Yes. Peak experience is a kind of ecstatic experience like you have on a mountain top. I don't think it's quite a mountain...
Q OK, thank you. That's very helpful. Would you agree that psychotherapy is an art not a science?
A No, I think it's an art and a science. I agree with the President of the European Association for Psychotherapy, who said, "is psychotherapy an art? Yes; is psychotherapy a science? Yes". You don't have to decide between the two. So I'm on his side.
Q OK. Would you think that because it's both, if you like, an art and a science, that occasionally making mistakes as a therapist is a regrettable but inevitable consequence of therapy?
A Yes, it would be weird if nobody's made mistakes and, in fact, there's a nice little book that came out called "20 Seasoned Therapists Write About Their Worst Mistakes". Actually, the title is nearly that; I'm not quite sure of the exact title.
Q Well, it's interesting you mention that book, because I was going to you: Would you say that the best psychotherapists are ones who admit their mistakes and try to remedy them, rather than trying, as might be quite human, to cover them up?
A Oh, yes, absolutely. I think that every therapist who's worth a light learns a great deal from their mistakes; and some have even said -- some eminent people have even said that they have learnt most from their worst clients or their most difficult clients.
Q Thank you very much. You wrote a book called "The Reality Game" -- I'm telling you something you already know -- and the Panel has been shown an extract from that book about your views that sometimes when the therapist feels sleepy or possibly even falls asleep, that's something to do with what's going on between the client and the therapist in terms of what I think in your book you call "genuineness"?
A Mmh.
Q Could you help the Panel at all with any sort of comment on that? One of the allegations is that I fell asleep in a session.
A Certainly. I have fallen asleep several times in the presence of a client, and on one occasion I remember he got very angry with me for doing that; and it was one of the best sessions that we had, because he'd found great difficulty in accessing any emotions up to that point, and the moment he became angry with me we got a lot more work done than we had previously. So I think it's obviously a mistake, obviously regrettable that it should happen; I certainly wouldn't aim at it, but I don't think it's a fatal fault.
Q Would you say it was appropriate to discuss the issue with the client and maybe even move the time of the session and things like that?
A Oh, absolutely, yes, yes.
Q I know you're interested in the distinction between boundary crossing and boundary violation?
A Mmh.
Q And that you want to say something about that to the Panel.
A Well, it's just a very important distinction. There's a dreadful guy writing in this field called Kenneth Pope. I don't know if he's been mentioned in this gathering at all, but it's his opinion that the slightest variation on strict boundaries takes you down the slippery slope which leads to sexual and financial exploitation in everything; and I think this is an extreme view and I think it's a wrong view. And I think there are certain kinds of boundary crossing that are not only not fatal but actually can be quite helpful and in certain situations totally inevitable. In small communities and that sort of thing, you can't avoid it. But boundary violation is quite different in my book. Boundary violation is where the therapist takes advantage of the client sexually or financially and actually deceives the client in making untoward demands and that sort of thing, which are quite improper by any standards.
Q Thank you. I think we have both read a book by a man called Sperry about "Ethics in psychotherapy"?
A Yes, an excellent brook.
Q I think you recommended it to me?
A Yes.
Q I have only got one final question before I ask Ms Jung if she has any questions for you. Have you ever seen any evidence of the taking of illegal drugs at my home or at the Gale Centre, or any evidence of my being involved in the use of such drugs?
A No.
MR GALE: Thank you.
THE CHAIR: Ms Jung? Sorry, just to ask, do you feel you would like a break, Dr Rowan, or are you happy to continue?
THE WITNESS: No, I'm fine.
THE CHAIR: OK, fine, thank you.
DR JOHN ROWAN
CROSS-EXAMINED BY MS JUNG
Q Dr Rowan, you'll be pleased to hear that I don't have many questions for you.
A OK.
Q Is it right that you have known Mr Gale for about 25 years as a professional colleague?
A Something of that order, yes.
Q And over those years you have had general discussions regarding both of your views as to approaches to therapy?
A Yes.
Q But those have been general discussions, rather than you, for example, taking on a supervisory role with regard to Mr Gale and his clients?
A Yes, I've never taken on a supervisory role.
Q And you have given us your view as to the appropriateness or not of certain boundary crossings and also approaches to therapy, would you agree that what is appropriate in the circumstances does depend on each individual client and the relationship that they have with the therapist?
A Yes.
MS JUNG: Thank you. I don't have any more questions for you?
THE WITNESS: Right.
THE CHAIR: Do you have any re-examination?
MR GALE: No, I don't think so.
THE CHAIR: Thank you. Professor Caplin, do you have any questions for this witness?
QUESTIONED BY PROFESSOR CAPLIN
Q Yes, if may. Dr Rowan, thank you. You will appreciate that I am very much a layperson here, so I will stray -- I will get into areas of ignorance for me. I just picked up in your statement at paragraph 8 a phrase you used that, "Mr Gale is a fascinating and consistently controversial figure".
A Yes.
Q And my eye was caught by the term "consistently controversial". I wonder if you could expand on that?
A Well --
Q What do you mean by that?
A He sort of has made quite a character dimension of being controversial. He's written columns called "Gale Force 10" for example, which are labelled as "controversial columns" in one or two magazines; and so I think he quite enjoys the idea of being a controversial figure and, in fact, one of his chapters is in a book called "Controversies in Psychotherapy". So I don't think he would disown this labelling.
Q All right, that's helpful. If I may pursue it a little bit. The implication, I take it, is that not all of his views would be accepted by other therapists even within his own field of humanistic psychotherapy?
A No, I think he likes to stir the pot a bit, to say things that go beyond the universally accepted truisms.
Q I wonder if you could, to help me could you identify any aspects of his views or controversial views that you yourself have disagreed with?
A Oh, my god. I don't know if I can remember enough to answer that. I think I'd have to have notice of that question.
Q Thank you. I have got one other question. Mr Gale asked you about self-disclosure and you remarked how it could sometimes be a very positive thing when used carefully, therapeutically, appropriately?
A Yes.
Q I think I paraphrased your response.
A Yes.
Q You also said that it then strengthens the bond between therapist and client?
A Mmh.
Q Now, from my lay view, the client/therapist relationship has some finite duration: The therapy at some stage, presumably, terminates; how does that relate to the strengthening of bond between therapist and a client, how eventually is the umbilical cord of that relationship to be severed?
A Well, usually there's a -- or, hopefully, there's a process which goes on in therapy, whereby, first of all, there lease a process of approaching closer and closer to each other, so to speak, until there's a real bond of a trust being built up between the two whereby the client feels they can talk about anything and it's not going to be laughed at or taken in an improper way or whatever. And then after that's happened then there's a gradual sort of winding down sort of withdrawal based on that trust, where both parties feel 'now we've done the job', so to speak, 'we've got where we needed to go'; and at that point termination is fairly easy, it's not too problematic. So I think there's that kind of in and out process that goes on in a good well managed psychotherapy.
Q May I for the record, because your hand gestures will not appear on the record may I just describe that you indicated with your hands your hands coming closer together during establishment of trust and then, towards the end of the process, your hands separated?
A Yes.
Q So would it be fair to draw a conclusion from that that self-disclosure by the therapist is likely to play a lesser and lesser role as the therapy proceeds beyond its closest point?
A Not necessarily, no, because with that later process there's a greater sense of relaxation between therapist and client. In other words, they're both not on their mettle, so to speak, as to whether they're going to be accepted or whether it's going to work, or whether it's going to be OK or not. So there's much more of a relaxed feeling that 'I can be myself in the presence of the other because I now trust them sufficient to feel that whatever I say is going to be OK'. So disclosure might increase or it might decrease. I don't think it would certainly automatically decrease.
PROFESSOR CAPLIN: Well, thank you for that. That's the end of my questions. Those have been very enlightening. Thank you very much indeed, Dr Rowan.
THE CHAIR: Mr Holloway, do you have any questions?
QUESTIONED BY MR HOLLOWAY
Q Yes, just some questions on the evidence that we have heard from you today. On the issue of contract and consent.
A Yes.
Q You were very clear about the difficulties of being very specific.
A Yes.
Q About contract and consent and what is not, if you like, in most psychotherapies. Could you for the benefit of the Panel give an indication of what would be a good broad contract or invitation to consent to treatment?
A Well --
Q I stress the word "broad".
A I have two sheets of paper which I give to my clients. One is called "therapy fact sheet 1" and the other is called "therapy fact sheet 2". And the therapy fact sheet 1 has basic things on it like, "we shall meet once a week; you shall pay this much money; I will finish on time, even if you arrive late; you will pay for sessions, even if you can't come to them; and if you plan those well ahead, you only pay half". That's my particular sort of conditions of service, so to speak. Then on the second sheet I've got things like, "the effort of therapy is something that you do, it's not something that I do for you. I'm here to offer my best services to help you to do whatever it is you need to do, whatever you need to explore, whatever you need to go into, and so forth; that is my job to help you to do that; it isn't my job to do it for you". And then I give details about confidentiality, like, "I won't talk about your case other than to professionals" with no names given, and supervision. Those sorts of things. And also I say, "I would advise you to not think in terms of breaking off therapy inside less than a year". That's my current position. So, you know, I'm quite explicit about what I can be explicit about, but that's as far as I can go.
Q And would you say that explicitness about what you can be explicit about is part of the facilitator's function of holding the four walls as you put it?
A Yes, yes, I certainly agree that.
Q Therapeutic contact that exists outside of those specific kind of contracts, where the explicitness of time, location, fees is less clear; do you have an idea of how patients may gain an understanding within that of when activities are therapeutic, nontherapeutic or potentially antitherapeutic?
A I don't know. In my practice, I'm fairly orthodox in that kind of respect, and I only see people in the therapy room at the therapy times; and so it doesn't really arise for me personally as to what I think about other situations where I might see the client or whatever.
MR HOLLOWAY: OK, thank you.
QUESTIONED BY THE CHAIR
Q Thank you. Really, just taking that on a little bit. If you only see the clients in the therapy rooms at therapy times when -- just taking you to paragraph 6 of your statement where you say, "I have been to social events at Mr Gale's Centre and at his home and met clients at some of these events and formed the impression that it did his clients no harm and that, on the contrary, it was often therapeutic for them". That, in a sense, would be in direct opposition to what you do yourself in your own practice?
A Yes.
Q Or am I jumping the gun?
A It wouldn't be my practice. It wouldn't be my practice to see clients other than at the appropriate place and time.
Q If, and again I stress what Professor Caplin said, I'm a layman here so I'm looking at this in layman's terms not in psychological terms; but if one took the view that you were going to have a big party or a series of parties or a series of social events that you were going to invite your clients to, either individually or on en masse, how would you go about that? Because, presumably, some people may relish -- some clients may relish that, and others it might do them irrevocable harm; how would one go about that?
A I don't know. I wouldn't do it. I just wouldn't invite clients to parties.
Q Can I ask why you wouldn't do that?
A It seems like it's outside my role or their role, as it works for me.
Q Right. Would you go on holiday with clients, for instance?
A Sorry?
Q Would you go on holiday with a client?
A Not personally, no.
Q Just the two of you?
A I wouldn't do that, no.
Q And do you think if a therapist was going to adopt a different approach to yourself, that they would need to give a lot of thought to that as to how it developed?
A Oh, yes.
Q And to who they went on holiday with and who they invited?
A Oh, yes, they'd have to take care to do good rather than harm. It would have to be therapeutic rather than nontherapeutic or antitherapeutic.
Q Sorry, I don't wish to be pedantic but can I just take you to paragraph 6 there, and I just wonder how you made those conclusions, having in what you said, that (a) it did his clients no harm and that, on the contrary, it was often therapeutic; what gave rise to you coming to that conclusion?
A Well, just from the chats that I got into at such parties; things that people said to me and to others in my hearing, and stuff I gathered. It seemed to be quite a good atmosphere on the whole.
Q Do you feel that the clients you met at those social session did they view them as a social, as a bit of a party or did they view them as therapy?
A Well, as far as I can see, they seemed to see it as a party.
Q Right.
A I couldn't see any kind of therapeutic activities going on.
Q Right. So they were viewed as a knees-up or a bit of an evening out or whatever rather than a therapeutic involvement?
A In the ones that I attended, yes.
Q Thank you. Just coming on to something else that, again, as a layman looking at the outside, looking at what we have heard over the last number of days, is there a danger with, if you like, a humanistic approach to this that the client is likely to become dependent upon the therapist more so than another type of approach?
A No, I would have thought less, because I think the type of approach where it's most likely to occur, this kind of dependency, is in sort of psychoanalytical approach where you actually encourage the development of a transference on to the therapist. In that situation I have seen many instances where the client has become very very dependent upon the therapist, and one case I became particularly knowledgeable about. It was quite -- I wondered about his motives and whether he was actually infantilising the client for his own purposes. But in the humanistic approach we acknowledge that there is a such a thing as transference and try and defuse it, the way it becomes problematic, rather than accepting it and working with it. And so these very close dependent relationships tend not to arise so much, and I would say they are more unusual in the humanistic approach than they were in the psychoanalytical approach, and I think they're even less likely to be happen in the behavioural or cognitive behavioural approach.
Q Thank you. You mentioned earlier in your evidence that you have the two pieces of paper; one that says, 'you'll come up at these time and you'll pay this'.
A Yes.
Q And the other one, if you like, explains the therapeutic approach if I can put it simplistically.
A Yes.
Q Do you ever have occasion to talk or give guidance to your clients outside therapy? You know, somebody might phone you out of hour, as it were, to discuss a problem because they've reached some sort of crisis point or whatever; does that ever happen?
A Not with me, no, no. If it did I'd simply say, 'come to the next session, we'll talk about that'.
Q If -- I suppose it's a hypothetical question, I won't ask you that. I think that is also all my questions. I know I got a verbal nudge, if one can get a verbal nudge, from my colleague on my right who would like to ask you another question.
PROFESSOR CAPLIN: Sorry to come back to you, Dr Rowan. In response to one of my colleague's questions, you said that you yourself would never see clients outside of your formal therapeutic setting; and I had earlier asked you about Mr Gale being consistently controversial and I asked you if you could think of any examples where your views disagreed with his, and you said you needed notice of that question; and I wondered whether that issue of seeing clients outside of a formal therapeutic setting was one where Mr Gale was being consistently controversial and it was one what you agreed or disagreed?
A Yes, I think it is one of the things where he is regarded as being a controversial figure, and certainly I found it controversial myself and I certainly wouldn't do it myself, although it seems to me he's within his rights to do it, so to speak, because it obviously suits him and his particular client.
Q Was it a matter that you ever discussed with him? You said you have had extensive discussions with him over many years?
A Yes, oh, yes. I smiled sometimes at some of the cuttings that he showed me.
Q And can you give us any sense of the nature of those discussions, obviously without breaching any confidentiality?
A Well, just --
Q From our your perspective?
A I just told him that I wouldn't copy him in that respect, that's all. It wouldn't be my way of going about things. I didn't sort of condemn it, but I didn't want to accept it either for me.
Q Was there any discussion of where or how there should be limits or constraints or issues that could be -- with the involvement of clients in other settings could be made safe for those clients or which of them might have been less safe?
A Yes, I think he had some quite good explanations on that. He had some quite good ideas on -- that he did take that issue seriously and did try to make sure that the therapeutic boundaries were there according to his own lights; and I don't think he was not conscientious about that.
Q I'm being rather dim here as a layperson, I wonder if you could help me particularly with a concrete example of setting such a limit on how he was, Mr Gale was defining the therapeutic purpose of a social interaction; could you think of a concrete example?
A Well, certainly I remember saying to him surely, you know, if you go on holiday you go on holiday. There's nothing therapeutic about that. And he was quite indignant that I had said that. He said no, in fact, it is therapeutic and I take care to make it and keep it therapeutic when that happens. So it wasn't that he was cavalier about it. I think he had a therapeutic conscience about it. It just wasn't the same as mine.
Q And did you find yourself able to agree with his explanation?
A Yes, yes.
PROFESSOR CAPLIN: OK, thank you, that is very helpful.
THE CHAIR: Sorry, I know Mr Holloway wants to ask a question. I would just like to ask a question following up just from the example that you have given my colleague. With the question of the holiday and whether it was therapeutic, what about all the clients, what about the client in all this, would the client need to see it was therapeutic to go on holiday for instance?
A Oh, I think so, yes. I would be worried if the client didn't go along with that idea.
Q So what if the client saw it as a social occasion, a social holiday, but the therapist thought it was therapy; how would those two gel together?
A I haven't met that, so I couldn't really answer that.
Q But would you think it was a dichotomy?
A I think it would be something in need of explanation.
Q Right, thank you very much. Right, sorry, we are all thinking of questions because of what our fellow panellists have said, so I won't say that Mr Caplin and I have necessarily finished. We might reserve the right to come back again depending on what Mr Holloway is going to ask.
MR HOLLOWAY: My question, Dr Rowan, was about your notion of within the humanistic tradition of defusing transference.
A Yes.
Q And, again, I am just going to ask you to say a little bit more to the Panel about kind of that idea of defusing the transference, rather than fostering it?
A Well, for example, I can give you in group I was running at the Minster Centre there was a woman in the group who made some rather cutting remarks to me, I was the group facilitator at that time, about something I had done or something I hadn't done or whatever it was; and, certainly, I got the impression that she was seeing me as her father, seeing much more like that than like me as I formally was in the group. And so I put it to her, I said, you know, it seems to me that you're speaking to me as if I were your father. So, in other words, I'm taking it and throwing it back to her, so to speak, to see if she agreed. She agreed that it was. So we worked a lot on cushion speak, cushions in that room. So I put the cushion out and said, "OK, there is your father sitting on that cushion, talk to him direct". And so we took the ambiguity of whether I was partly the facilitator and partly the father, so we put the father out there. That's a more humanistic way of doing things. So then she was able to rat away at her father at great length and very effectively, and I was facilitating that into action as best I could so that it would be productive for her. Something, obviously, that I had said or done had brought this up for her and now she had a chance to work on it in a therapeutic way. So that's the kind of way in which I say a humanistic approach is to work with it as a phenomenon, rather than to encourage it as a therapeutic instrument in itself.
Q That's a very clear example, thank you. I wonder if you have any similar examples in relation particularly to erotic transference.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: In relation to what, sorry?
MR HOLLOWAY: Erotic transference.
A I think I'd have to have notice of that question.
Q OK. Then my follow-up question about that is would you see that particular phenomenon as an important one where the therapist works hard to diffuse the transference?
A I think it could be, but I haven't known it in my own experience as a problem or an issue. So, you know, I haven't got lot of to offer on that one.
MR HOLLOWAY: OK, thank you very much.
THE CHAIR: I just have one final question. It was in my mind to ask you, and it went out of it because you were giving such interesting answers to the questions. You talked earlier on about boundary crossings and boundary violations.
A Yes.
Q That I think, as I understood it, it was you thought that in certain circumstances boundary crossing was OK?
A Yes.
Q OK, perhaps that's the wrong word for it. You could see boundary crossing. How would a therapist be in a situation where they felt it was right that a boundary would be violated? So, in other words, a therapist would be continuing a treatment that was perhaps as other people would see it a boundary violation, but that particular therapist thought it was in the interest of their client to continue in that way; could you ever see a situation arising there or is a boundary violation always a boundary violation in that it's, if you like, set in stone?
A A boundary violation is something that the therapist shouldn't do. It involves some kind of exploitation of the client, and so you know I wouldn't see any place for that at all.
Q Right, OK, that's fine. You have answered that question, thank you. Do you have any questions? As Mr Gale explained to you, the two counsel now have the opportunity. They can't ask you anything new but if there is anything arising from the questions that the Panel asked that they need further elaboration on they are entitled to ask. So I ask Ms Jung first if there is anything. .
DR JOHN ROWAN
FURTHER EXAMINED BY MS JUNG
Q Sir, there is one point. Dr Rowan, you said that you yourself don't have any experience of erotic transference; I wanted to ask you --
A I don't think I quite said that, I said I didn't want to talk about it.
Q Oh, you said you didn't want to talk about it. I wonder whether you would answer this question. If you found yourself in a situation where during a therapy session with a particularly vulnerable client, so one that you thought perhaps may be on the verge of having mental problems, and she admitted to you that she found you sexually attractive, how would you approach that?
A Well, the first thing is I'd take it to my supervisor. I'm in regular supervision and that's the kind of issue that I would take to a supervisor, and hope to receive some sort of clarification of what the best answer would be to that.
Q What about in the session itself, how would you deal with that client in that session?
A A bit hard to say. There's such a lot of variations in the way it might happen, I don't think I could answer that.
Q If in that session the client had told you that she found you sexually attractive, do you think it would be appropriate for you then at the end of the session to give that client a hug where your chests came in contact with each other?
A No.
Q And would you think it appropriate at a later date to stroke that patient's hair and ping her bra strap?
A No.
MS JUNG: Thank you. I don't have any more questions.
THE CHAIR: Thank you. Mr Gale, do you have any questions arising from the Panel's questions?
DR JOHN ROWAN
FURTHER EXAMINED BY MR GALE
Q Yes, thank you. Dr Rowan, you were asked and you said you'd read -- well, you didn't exactly say that, but I assume you've read lots of "Gale Force 10" columns.
A Yes.
Q I just wanted to try and be a be a little bit clearer about how the columns are written. In my opinion they're written to ask therapists to ask themselves questions perhaps to --
THE CHAIR: Sorry, Mr Gale, just to interrupt, these were written for some magazine or periodical, were they?
MR GALE: Yes.
THE CHAIR: Can you just tell us which magazine?
MR GALE: "Hypnosis". I think there are some actually examples of it in the bundle.
THE CHAIR: So Hypnosis magazine.
MR GALE: Yes, and before that for various other magazine.
THE CHAIR: Sorry to interrupt, it was just so we got it in context, thank you.
MR GALE: What I was thinking was that they are not like, 'this is what you should do', but they are more about asking people to ask themselves questions about their practice, would you agree with that?
A Yes.
Q Thank you. You were asked about what would happen if a client saw something as purely social which I saw as therapeutic, presumably -- I was just going to ask you to enlarge on that slightly, in that presumably that the duty of care between the client and the therapist would be to discuss that difference in perception or that misunderstanding?
A Yes.
Q Thank you. And I don't want to sort of get into a sort of tennis match about this hug, we only have the client's description of it --
THE CHAIR: Mr Gale, it's just questions not a monologue.
MR GALE: OK. Could you see circumstances in which a hug might be encouraging to the client, to tell them that in fact or give them the message that the fact they'd shared difficult information was not going to cause them to be rejected.
A Yes, in the humanistic approach hugging is regarded as more or less universally OK, although at certain instances it can be problematic. So it's more a case in a psychoanalytic view a hug is never OK, so if it does happen it's automatically problematic; and the humanistic approach is regarded as basically OK, but it can become problematic in certain cases dependent on the circumstances.
Q And I've just got one other question for you, which is: Could you imagine, for example, a social event which was not -- it didn't have in the middle of it some therapy exercise, but that that would be, if you like, in a milieu sense therapeutic for the clients?
A It's possible, yes.
Q So, for example, if a therapy centre had a Christmas lunch or something, that would not necessarily have a therapy input in the middle of it but it might be therapeutic for people to know that they had that membership of that group and that they could use that membership if they chose?
A I'm not sure about that. I really don't know.
MR GALE: Thank you.
THE CHAIR: Sorry, I have a question. Sorry, this is like adding on here. You were talking about a hug, and you said, "basically, that was OK but it can become problematic".
A Yes.
Q When would it become problematic?
A Well, it would become problematic if there was some erotic question attached to it, that it started to become erotic in other words. That's not what it's supposed to be.
Q No.
A It's supposed to be sort of warm human response and that's not really what it would be, but if those sort of erotic overtones start to appear then one would become quite suspicious about that and take it to supervision or something of that kind.
THE CHAIR: Thank you, sorry. Nobody wants to ask a supplementary about my supplementary?
MR GALE: I don't think so.
THE CHAIR: Thank you.
MR GALE: I was just getting some advice. (Confers with Ms Martin) It's OK.
THE CHAIR: OK, well unless any of my colleagues have any? No, OK. Well, can I just thank you, Dr Rowan, for coming along as it's been changed on a number of occasions. Just from my own personal point of view just answering in such an interesting way, I am learning quite a lot as this matter goes along, but I certainly learnt a lot this morning from listening to your answers to the questions. So thank you very much for coming along. I need to just give you the general witness warning, which is please do not discuss the evidence that you have given with anybody else. As you have perhaps met some of Mr Gale's clients, you might come across somebody who has not already given evidence. Please do not discuss this matter with anybody else, please.
THE WITNESS: Fine.
THE CHAIR: And, also, having said that, this is a public hearing, as you can see. You are welcome to stay and hear the rest of the day or come back if you want, or if you have got other things to do then you are now free to go. Thank you very much.
THE WITNESS: Thank you.
THE CHAIR: Well, your timing is impeccable, Mr Gale. You said 10:30 till 12:00, and it's now 5 to 12.
MR GALE: Thank you for the compliment.
THE CHAIR: I am just thinking about this other matter that you are likely to raise and I was thinking about the timetable. When are you likely to want to raise it?
MS JUNG: Sir, I see that Sabrina Adams has just left, I don't know whether she would be able to me an update now if I could ask for a short adjournment?
THE CHAIR: Yes, OK, fine. Well, I mean -- well, all right, let's have a short adjournment; perhaps you can give us an update.
MS JUNG: Sir, yes.
THE CHAIR: So we will stay here, we won't actually go to our little room.
MS JUNG: Sir, yes, if you don't mind me leaving the room?
THE CHAIR: No, no, please.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Well, perhaps --
THE CHAIR: All right.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: And then it will enable me to mention things to Mr Gale.
THE CHAIR: So it could be that we might come back and discuss this. If not, the next witness is Mr Thorne, who is -- is he Dr Thorne?
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Professor.
MR GALE: Professor Thorne.
THE CHAIR: Professor Thorne at 1 o'clock. So if we don't come back, then we will continue at 1 o'clock with Professor Thorne, thank you.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Can I just be clear about this. The next witness is timetabled for 1 o'clock?
THE CHAIR: Yes.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: This is lunch break now?
THE CHAIR: This is lunch break. I was just wondering whether there was an update on --
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: There might be an update, but I don't think that anyone can envisage that this application can be dealt with before 1 o'clock.
THE CHAIR: Fine, then --
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: I am so sorry, I had taken my eye off the timetable.
THE CHAIR: So we will break for lunch, but perhaps if there is an update somebody could send a message to our room.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: And the reason I say that is even if whatever steps were being taken have been taken, which I doubt, even if they had been Mr Gale has got to have time. I imagine you would want time to consider it anyway.
THE CHAIR: OK, fine. We will take a lunch break then, but perhaps we can get some sort of update.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Yes.
(Luncheon adjournment)
THE CHAIR: Thank you.
PROFESSOR ROBERT THORNE, SWORN
THE CHAIR: Good afternoon. Could I just ask you a question. It's just a question of how we should refer to you when you are giving your evidence. Are you quite happy for us to refer to you by your full name or would you -- some of our witnesses have asked to be initialized.
THE WITNESS: No, I think I would be quite happy to be referred to by my full name.
THE CHAIR: So I shall call you Professor Thorne then?
THE WITNESS: That is fine.
THE CHAIR: Good afternoon, Professor Thorne, and thank you very much for coming along to give evidence. You probably have had the date and time for you to give evidence changed a couple of times.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE CHAIR: That's entirely down to me, I am afraid. I haven't been too well for the last couple of weeks. So it came unexpectedly and things had to be changed. So apologies for that.
THE WITNESS: Well, there we have something in common, Mr Chairman, if I may say so. You probably gather from my voice that I too am somewhat ailing, so if I suddenly have to grab a glass of water you will understand.
THE CHAIR: We will try and drink the water in sync then.
THE WITNESS: Good.
THE CHAIR: You are going to be asked a number of questions this afternoon from various people sitting round this table, and I this it's only right that we should introduce ourselves to you so that you know who we are and where we are coming from when we ask you the questions. My name is Ian Griffiths. I am a lay member with the Health Professions Council and I am chairing of this particular hearing. On my left?
MR HOLLOWAY: Peter Holloway, the registrant arts therapist member.
THE CHAIR: On my right?
PROFESSOR CAPLIN: Good afternoon. I am David Caplin, and I am a lay partner.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Good afternoon, Professor Thorne. I am Simon Russen. I am the Legal Assessor. My job is to ensure that these proceedings are conducted properly. I don't take part in the decisions that the Panel make.
THE HEARINGS OFFICER: Good afternoon. I am James Bryant. I am the Hearing Officer for the HPC.
MS JUNG: Good afternoon. I am Bo-eun Jung, and I am representing the Health Professions Council.
MR GALE: And I am, as you know, Derek Gale and this is Rosie Martin, who I would describe her as part of our amateur legal team.
THE CHAIR: Your evidence is scheduled here, Professor Thorne, between 1:00 and 2:30. Having said that, if you feel, particularly in view of the fact that you have got a bit of a meaty chest like myself, if you feel you would like a break in the middle then please say so. We can have a short adjournment if you feel you would like one in the middle. If I could just ask you if you can keep your voice up, if possible, so that we can all hear what you are saying. I would just draw your attention to the gentleman on your immediate left who is taking a verbatim note of what's being said. Having said that, I'll pass you over to Mr Gale who is going to start the questioning off.
PROFESSOR ROBERT THORNE
EXAMINED BY MR GALE
Q Thank you. I am hoping that you've got a witness statement open in front of you, but it might actually not be yours.
A No, it isn't.
Q If you go right to the front of that bundle to number 1.
A Yes.
Q You should find one that's by you.
A No, it isn't.
Q Mr Russen will help you. He's fully conversant with the file.
A That looks recognizably me.
Q Yes, right.
MR GALE: Ms Russen, I don't think the witness has the JB file.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Do we need it.
MR GALE: Well we know it off by heart but I think he might need it. He can have my copy, if necessary. If you look at your witness statement, Professor Thorne, is that your address?
A It is.
Q And, if you turn over the page, is that your signature?
A It is.
Q And does that look like your witness statement, as you last saw it?
A It does, indeed.
Q Thank you. Are you quite happy with it, or is there anything in it that you want to change or anything?
A No, I'm quite happy with it.
Q OK. I am going to ask you some questions, hopefully easy ones. Mainly, my job is just to help you to enlarge on your witness statement at this stage and, mainly, for you to help the Panel to understand what's gone on where or what's going on in terms of my work as a therapist and, also, in terms of these proceedings?
A Mmh.
Q Then Ms Jung will ask you some questions, or she may not. That's up to her. Then the Panel may or may not ask you some questions. And the system is such that after each set of questions, Ms Jung or I can come back and say to you, 'did you mean this or did you mean that', or we may not, depending on what we think. Once or twice I have thought I understood the question better than the witness, but that sort of thing. So I have asked you about your witness statement. In terms of these proceedings taking an oath on the table has been a little uncommon, would I be right in saying you're a committed Christian?
A Yes, you'd be absolutely right. People don't usually become lay cannons of cathedrals if they're not actually committed Christians.
Q That's my next question out of the window then. I was going to ask you: Are you a lay cannon of Norwich Cathedral?
A Indeed I am, yes.
Q And I'm always a bit difficult about titles, but I believe you're a Professor Emeritus of Counselling at the University of East Anglia, is that right?
A That's right, yes.
Q Not only therapy. And that you are the author of a standard text on person centred psychotherapy?
A That's correct.
Q With Dave Mears?
A That's correct.
Q I suppose we have known each other for quite a long time as colleagues, is that true?
A Yes, fairly superficially until fairly recent times.
Q I have written here that, in fact, we only met for the first time other than fleetingly face to face a few years ago?
A That's correct.
Q Would you agree that our meetings and exchanges have all been on a professional level?
A Would have been on a professional level?
Q Yes.
A Yes, indeed.
Q Thank you. Because some of the people who've been witnesses have been people who've also been friends?
A Yes.
Q For some years?
A Yes.
Q When we meet, would it be true to say that we spend a lot of time discussing matters relating to therapy, maybe a particular problem that we are interested in or particular approaches to therapy and the direction that therapy is going in, in suppose?
A Yes, I think we both have a very considerable interest really in what one might call, 'the overview of the therapeutic situation in Great Britain at the moment', and often when we have met we have actually touched on that and looked at different aspects really of therapeutic importance.
Q Thank you. There is a small technical issue. One asks the witness to talk to the Panel not to me. It's a bit of a sort of mind game?
A Right, I will try and swivel appropriately.
THE CHAIR: It's not the be all and end all, so if you get engrosses in your questions --
THE WITNESS: I suppose as a therapist one is used to responding to the person who's actually addressing you
THE CHAIR: Yes, I quite understand.
MR GALE: It's a bit like having live supervision, I suppose.
A Yes.
Q I wanted to ask you about the relationship between clients and therapists, and my question is perhaps especially relevant to your orientation, which is would you agree that in therapy the important issue is the relationship between the client and therapist and that is perhaps more important than the style of therapy?
A Yes, I would say certainly agree with that statement, and I think a great deal of research bears that out; that it is, in fact, the relational bond between therapist and client which is often the predictor of successful or unsuccessful outcome.
Q Thank you. Following on from that, whether it's a written or an implied or a verbal contract between the client and the therapist, that it's important that there's a contract and they both understand what it means?
A Yes, I would see that to be of really considerable importance, although I think contractual agreements can be arrived at through a number of different processes but that there should be a contract, yes.
Q So you don't actually have to say, 'now we are going to be contracting'.
A No.
Q You might just be talking about how the therapy is going or where one person thinks it's leading?
A You might actually be exploring with your client exactly what the therapeutic process, as you understand it, really entails and ensuring that the client actually has a similar understanding of what they are about to undertake.
Q And would you think of that, other than in very brief short therapy, as an evolving process that goes on all the time in the therapy?
A I think, as far as contracting in that sense is concerned, contracts can actually shift and change as therapy proceeds; but I think it's enormously important that if changes are actually merely taking place, that they are noted and clearly, as it were, agreed upon by both parties. I think it's not appropriate for a contractual agreement, however originally made, to, as it were, move into something different without that having actually been clearly manifested.
Q And perhaps, also, at the same time, talking about how the therapy works?
A Oh, yes, indeed; that could well be part of the process.
Q You have been very generous in your witness statement about me, of which I am very grateful; would you consider that one of the things you find commendable in my practice is that it offers something more wider or different from the mainstream of therapy?
A Yes, I would certainly, I think, feel that. As I asked myself, 'why am I coming here', especially in a somewhat ailing condition, I think I had three answers really. I was coming because in recent times I have come to respect your honesty and integrity as a person and as a professional, and that for me has considerable meaning; secondly, I've come to appreciate you as somebody who is deeply reflective about the work that he does; that he is prepared, as it were, to look at his work with new eyes, fresh perspectives and so on, if that is what is actually clearly being called for. But to respond quite directly to your last question, I sometimes feel that it may be that it is the very fact that, for goodness knows how many years ago, I think it's about 30 years, you have been involved in therapeutic work, which is actually rare, which is I think also extremely demanding, but also has within it quite a number of important issues I think which mainstream therapeutic approaches can probably learn from and benefit from. But I am aware of the fact that because of your particular therapeutic work and your particular orientations, you are in effect in a very small category of practitioners. It sometimes feel that you may be in a category of one. I don't know that for a fact, but I suspect it may be the case.
Q Thank you. That is very helpful. I am sure the Panel will be grateful for that answer. It's true that you had hoped to be an expert witness in this case, but because you are not qualified in drama therapy and some other areas you divided that that wouldn't be appropriate for you, is that correct?
A That is the case, yes. I had certainly considered being an expert witness but, having been as it were given the opportunity to look in fullness at some of the things that were actually being concerned, I felt that that would not be appropriate. I do not have a training in drama therapy. I certainly have no training in voice work and, therefore, the particular arenas which it seems to me fell very clearly into the domain of Health Professions Council were arenas in which I am actually not qualified really to speak. Having said that, 40 years ago (and that is a very long time ago) I did have a very basic introductory training to psycho drama. So I do have some kind of I think theoretical and, to some extent, practical knowledge of some aspects the work in which you have been involved, but certainly not enough to really be, I thought, a credible expert witness.
Q Thank you. But, again, you're here today, I assume and I'm asking you I guess, in terms of your general knowledge about psychotherapy and group works?
A Yes, I suppose I'm here principally as a character witness and that is the reason that I actually produced my witness statement, but clearly I am here also in my, I suppose, capacity as an Emeritus Professor of a University but somebody who occupies I think a fairly significant place in the therapeutic, as it were, environment of the country at the present time. And I wouldn't want to deny that, nor would I want to deny the Panel whatever kind of resourcefulness I bring as a result of that.
Q Thank you. That's very good, thank you. I just wanted to clear this issue of fact with you. You read all the complainants' witness statement and their background evidence that I sent you when we were considering your being an expert witness?
A Yes.
Q Is that correct?
A It is, indeed, correct.
Q I think you've probably already answered this question, but you may want to add something to it. I have got written down here, "Professor Thorne, the allegations against me are very serious, what makes you want to come here today in support of me?" If you feel you have already answered that, that's fine, but if the question helps you to add anything to what you have said?
A Yes, I think it probably does. I have referred to the fact that I have come in the last couple of years to be very respectful of your honesty and integrity and openness and reflectiveness and, of course, part of that respect is due to the way in which you yourself responded to some of my own questions and probings of some of the things of which you were deemed accused. Therefore, I bear in mind, as I come today, much that you were able to say to me during that period about some of those accusations and that makes me feel that I do not wish, as it were, to withdraw my support in the light of what you have said and the kind of person I have come to believe you are.
Q Thank you. Even though perhaps you may have heard other people not speak so warmly about me in the last couple of years?
A Yes, that is certainly true. I have heard people speak of you in terms which, if not wholly negative are at least to put you into the realm of the mavericks.
Q Thank you. That was said by one person in these proceedings at one time as a compliment.
A I think, may I add one further?
Q Please.
A It is only right and proper I think that I should say and acknowledge that some of Mr Gale's ways of working are not my ways of working, and I would find it almost impossible to believe that I myself coming from the orientation that I do would have practised in some of the ways that Mr Gale has. So I am not saying that I could be, if you like, Mr Gale. I clearly could not, because I am not Mr Gale. I do not have his background and training. I do not have some of his perceptions really of the therapeutic environment. So all that needs to be taken into account as well.
Q Thank you.
A But that doesn't in any way detract from the statements that I made five minutes ago.
Q I guess you would say that you wouldn't work like Regina Stamiadis as well then?
THE CHAIR: Just to say, Mr Gale, two of us on here have no idea who Regina Stamiadis is.
MR GALE: Somewhere in the bundle there is an article by her which I've referred to.
THE CHAIR: Continue to ask your questions.
MR GALE: I guess you wouldn't see yourself as working like here either?
A I wouldn't, although she does present, as it were, rather different issues to me. This is, in fact, a Greek lady, Regina Stamiadis, who practises in Switzerland, whom I have known for many many years because she is basically from my own orientation. She is a person centred therapist. And some years ago she actually wrote an article for the professional journal, which at that time I was one of the associate editors, on a particular therapeutic work which involved taking clients into her own home for a fairly lengthy, residential therapeutic experience. In other words, what he was actually doing was bringing into the therapeutic work a very large dose, if you like, of reality of living together with those who were actually her clients. And why I hesitated in response to the question was that, of course, as she was doing that, she was applying particular theoretical insights and particular ways of behaving which are, in fact, of my own tradition. And, therefore, although it's unlikely that I would become a Regina Stamiadis, I may not have so much theoretical difficulty as I would perhaps with some of your own work.
THE CHAIR: Thank you.
MR GALE: You said that I conducted myself non-defensively.
A Yes.
Q When we discussed matters?
A Yes.
Q I suppose that implies that some people might not be 100 per cent open when they were talking about things they were complaining about or something like that?
A Yes, I think that would be true. I would have thought -- well, it's not just a question of thinking, I have had experience of those who have been accused of one thing or another and I have had the opportunity to talk with them and converse with them and to have had very often the feeling that this was a defensive response, that this wasn't, as it were, an honest, straight and authentic response; whereas in my conversations with you I felt that you were actually being straight, honest and authentic, which for me is the contrary of being defensive. I didn't feel you were putting up a smokescreen of any kind.
Q And I have admitted to certain errors and mistake in my practice?
A You have, you have indeed.
Q And --
A I might also, in fact -- I'm sorry I interrupted the question.
Q No, go ahead.
A What I was going to say was that it seems to me that those of us who have been working as therapists in whatever orientation for a lengthy period of time, whether we're talking about 20 years, 30 years or 40 years, and haven't actually from time to time made errors of judgment and mistakes, then those people I have yet to meet.
Q Thank you. Could you, please -- there's another white file by your right hand, could you use please turn to page 90 in that bundle, I'd like to ask you a question or two about it?
A Page 90.
Q Yes.
A Right, I think I can get it. Yes, OK.
MR GALE: 90.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: The transcript?
MR GALE: Yes, it's the transcript of JB's --
A It's the page which begins, "what were you apologising for?" Is that right.
Q Yes. Do you need to have a quick look at it to refresh your memory?
A Yes, please.
Q Take your time.
A Because it was some months ago that I saw this documentation, you will recall. (Pauses to read) OK.
Q There are two things that I need to tell you to put this in context. One is we have had an audio tape of this session. I don't think you have heard that, have you?
A No.
Q No. And the other is that you did see, didn't you, the extracts from this lady's diary?
A Yes.
Q We have now seen the full diary, which you haven't seen.
A Right.
Q Which may affect or not your questions. Clearly, when you look at this dialogue in the session there is a technical problem in that I appear to have breached her confidentiality in that dialogue. In your opinion, how serious a matter in this case would you say that breach is?
THE CHAIR: And if you can't answer -- that seems, just from where I am sitting, a question that you might feel difficulty in answering. If that's the case, then it's quite legitimate to say that it is a question that you have difficulty answering. But if you can answer it, fine.
THE WITNESS: Yes, I presume you're referring to --
MR GALE: I think we call him XX in these proceedings.
A Yes. You're referring to XX and his pain?
Q Yes.
A Yes. And that you actually allude to the fact that you know about that.
Q Yes.
A Yes. Well, on the face of it, it certainly seems like an error of judgment. It certainly feels to me like a breach of confidentiality, but there are quite a number of other questions that I would have to ask. For example, how much does this particular client know, as it were, that you know? In other words, are we actually talking about something here which in a sense is in, if not the public domain, at least in the dual domain of you and your client? Or is this breach of confidentiality, as it were, coming out of the blue? I would need to know.
Q I think if you had time to read the whole thing you would see it's a bit of both.
A Right, yes, yes.
Q She certainly knows about his pain.
A Right. Well, I suppose then to try and give as fair an answer as I can, it would seem to me that it is an error of judgment; but it's actually falling, as I understand it now, into a rather grey area. I wouldn't actually see it, I think, as a grievous error of judgment, a grievous breach of confidentiality but a breach of confidentiality it is.
Q Thank you. The Panel may come back and ask you more about that.
A Yes, OK.
Q Because they are very interested in that particular issue. Obviously -- well, I have raised it with you, so I obviously understand that there was a breach and a failing in practice, what you have called "an error" there. Assuming that I was willing to put that right in future, would you think that this would impair my fitness to practise?
THE CHAIR: And, again, that seems -- well, answer it please, but if you feel it's a question that you might not be able to answer from your expertise, it's quite legitimate to give that as an answer.
MR GALE: I was just going to clarify my question slightly and say that I am asking you this as someone who is or has been a trainer of therapists and, presumably, having had to adjudicate on people's appropriateness as therapists.
A I think the key issue here is whether a therapist acknowledges a particular inadequacy or a particular error and then is willing, as it were, to address that inadequacy or that error, whether it be through supervision or additional training or whatever it be. And if a therapist is, indeed, prepared (a) to acknowledge that an error has been made, and (b) that he needs now to take steps and measures to ensure that such an error doesn't occur, then if that whole process has been gone through, then it seems to me, no. But certainly this person is in no way impaired, as it were, in continuing his practice. In fact, I think the whole evolution really of therapeutic competence often actually revolves around this ability of a therapist to acknowledge where there are shortcomings, where something has, if you like, gone awry, and to be prepared to address that and to seek further supervision and training to ensure that that doesn't happen again. I think one of the things about therapy in general is the whole emphasis that the profession places upon continuing professional development, and continuing professional development doesn't always mean learning new skills or gaining new knowledge. It very often means reflecting more deeply upon one's current practice and seeing where that is less, as it were, than it ought to be and taking the necessary steps really to improve. I mean this is a whole area really that we could go on talking about, I suspect, for a very long time. My voice would certainly have run out by then.
Q As I say, you haven't seen the whole diary and you haven't heard the tapes of these sessions.
A No.
Q And I realise that these questions are a bit in sort of black and white form, and that perhaps as your answers have implied therapists are not given to saying 'yes or no' often; but does it seem to you that -- I suppose I'm asking you this because you're specifically a person centred therapist, does it seem to you that although I might have been abrupt or confrontational with this client that I have been what you might call congruent or what I would say absolutely honest in my interactions with her, in terms of taking her on as she appears to be in the session?
A If you're asking me that as a person centred therapist, I think I would reply that what I see in front of me mere could well be appropriate congruent behaviour, depending upon the nature of this relationship and how long that relationship had been in existence. If I saw a transcript like this and we were talking about the first time you'd ever met, as a person centred therapist I would have very considerable misgivings. But if I saw this as part of a transcript of a person centred process and we were now talking about session 33, then I would not have those misgivings at all. I think, incidentally, that this whole issue of what we in our job called 'congruence', which is the ability of the therapist to be straight and honest and direct and not move behind some professional kind of cloak yes, that whole business of how to be congruent is one which in your own practice is I think fairly central. In terms of what we have discussed and in terms of what I have actually read of some of the things that you yourself have written, the issue of being authentic, being real, being, using my jargon congruent, is often a key aspect, really, of your therapeutic approach.
Q Thank you. Would you consider that -- I mean you haven't had all the benefit that we have, but this client has been described in some ways as "very vulnerable", in other ways as "needy", clearly she has, because it might be a while ago but I think you've read the whole set of transcript, clearly she has manifest problems; do you think that a more anodyne or polite, or whatever you would like to call it, approach would have had much chance of helping her? Or do you think that there was maybe some value in my, if you like, taking on the strength underneath her apparent weakness?
A It's an impossible question to answer.
Q I'm sorry.
A Nonetheless, I think I can say that from what I recall of some of the transcripts I did not experience this particular client as, if you like, all vulnerability. I experienced her as I experience most human beings as partly vulnerable and partly strong. And what I think would be for me a key issue is why was she coming to you for therapy? Why was she not going somewhere else? Why has she selected to work with the therapist, whom she must have known, as it were, ab initio, was somebody who was going to be from time to time confrontational with her. Because I do think that clients select out the therapists whom they believe are likely to be helpful to them, and I don't know whether that is any kind of answer to your question.
Q I think it's helpful to the Panel, because I think to them it just looks a bit difficult to understand. So that's very useful. Professor Thorne, do you think that endings in therapy are important?
A Yes, I do.
Q Do you want to say any more about that or will you rely on what John Rowan said this morning?
THE CHAIR: Well, the witness won't know what Mr Rowan said.
MR GALE: No, of course, but I think we know what he's written. Would you just like to say a bit more about that, it might not be the same as what John says.
A Endings are important.
Q Perhaps how you think they should go?
A I think endings should, wherever possible, be properly prepared for. The longer that a client has actually been in therapy, the more important it is that that relationship actually ends in a way which is creative, rather than destructive, and that usually means that endings have to be really quite well negotiated and prepared for. What I mean by that I know is that the possibility of ending is something which is likely to be within, if you like, the discussion between therapist and client long before the ending actually takes place. It is something which both know they are moving gradually towards. Having said all that, I do know that for some clients ending is so incredibly difficult that they will themselves end a relationship rather parentally, because they cannot actually, as they understand it, quite cope with a long drawn out process. But that doesn't, in fact, alter in any way my own feelings about endings being enormously significant and things which have to be properly prepared for and conducted.
Q You may not, as the Chairman has said, be able to answer this question, and if you can't I apologise in advance. Do you think that it's more than coincidence that all the complainants in these proceedings had abrupt endings to their therapy rather than, as many clients who are supportive of me, have had an ending where they made a date and worked towards that ending?
A It does on the face of it seem somewhat odd because it seems that, as I understand it, in the majority of cases, as far as your own clients are concerned, and this is certainly true of therapy in general, clients actually work fairly assiduously in order to end relationships, as it were, creatively and productively for themselves; and to have a group of clients, all of whom actually for one reason or another seem to end their therapy somewhat prematurely and parenterally, I think at the very least I would say is a bit odd.
Q Thank you. This is not intended to be in any way offensive this question, just to put people in the picture; I have written down here, "would you describe yourself as a prolific reader of matters related to psychotherapy?"
A A prolific reader?
Q Yes, I've never discovered anything you haven't read?
A I suppose I do read quite a lot, yes, but that's what academics are meant to do, you know; you don't become an Emeritus Professor if you don't read a vast number of books and, hopefully, write a few as well. Anyway, yes, go on.
Q And it's probably true to say you've written, for your sins, a lot of what I've written as well.
A Mmh.
Q Specifically, the "Gale Force 10" columns when they were in the Counselling Journal.
A Yes.
Q And then in Hypnosis magazine?
A Sure, yes.
Q The reason I'm asking you about the "Gale Force 10" column is that some of the complainants have criticised that column that I wrote.
A Yes.
Q Before asking you anything more specific, how have you received those columns over the years.
A Oh, I have always found them very stimulating; I've found some of them extremely amusing, I have found that they nearly always have a kind of core issue, which therapists of all persuasions can do well really to ponder. So stimulating, humorous, worthwhile.
Q If I could ask you a question I haven't got written down here: Presumably, to have a core issue which therapists of all persuasions could ponder, I would have to know a fair bit about the wide spectrum of issues in therapy?
A That would seem to follow, yes.
Q Thank you. Sorry if it sounds a bit of an obvious question. I think you probably saw a column in which, with some amazement, I wrote that -- I was writing that I had taken a form of Viagra as a man of nearly 60 who didn't want to give up an active sex life; do you recall that?
A I do dimly recall it.
Q Would you consider that that was a sort of helpful or a damaging thing for a therapist to write about?
A I would have thought that for the majority of readers it would be an example, if you like, of authenticity which they would find very refreshing,
Q Thank you.
A I can imagine there might be a minority of readers who might have reacted with shock horror, but the majority I think would have found it a really refreshing and straight observation.
Q It took quite some writing, I can tell you.
A Yes. Well, I think -- I don't know whether this is appropriate to say, but I think I'll say it. It seems to me that whenever a therapist, whether he's actually writing as in this instance a column for a journal or whether he's actually taking a risk within a therapeutic relationship of being authentically himself, there is a risk element; and I suppose the wisdom of the therapist is in the discernment of whether that risk is actually, if you like, to be taken for the benefit of the client and for the benefit of that client's process. That is the real expertise, if you like, of the therapist who is working with authentic direct responses.
Q I suppose you might say it's as risky to say something sometimes as not to say something?
A Oh, indeed, yes.
Q Thank you. I think you've probably answered this question. Again, your answers -- it sort of sometimes happens that people answer a question before you have asked it, but you said in your witness statement, and I have put this in inverted commas that you describe my approach to therapy as, "challenging conventional thinking as well as taking a provocative stance". Perhaps you do or you don't want to add to what you have already said about that?
A Well, I could add I think a number of things really. I think that there are in the world of counselling and therapy a number of sacred cows which very often have assumed almost tablets of stone kind of characteristics. One such, if I may say just as an example, is that therapeutic interviews should last for 50 minutes. That in psychotherapeutic quarters has become almost a tablet of stone. There is, in fact, very little therapeutic justification for that. There are other issues I think which fall, broadly speaking, within the arena of certain boundaries, therapy as a boundaried kind of activity, which clearly it is; but, nonetheless, there are again certain sacred cows about that, such as that therapy should always take place in the same room in the same building at the same hour, yes. And I think what you have the ability to do is sometimes to take some of these issues and give them a shake and say, 'look, let's look at this afresh, do we have to be really quite so dogmatic in the establishing of particular rights and rituals and boundaries?' And I think that is challenging for therapy as a whole and I think it's actually productive.
Q So if I asked you to comment on this. I had a very vital therapeutic interaction with a client whilst swimming in the Aegean Sea, would that add to your idea that I have the capacity to take the therapy out of the 50 minute hour?
A I think that would be indisputably the case, yes.
Q I mean you have spoken to me a lot about my therapy and my approach to therapy, do you see anything in the stance I take which could be harmful to clients that I work with?
A The brief point, I suppose, is no, I don't, but I have to qualify it because there are certain unknowns as far as I'm concerned. The unknowns are always around the area I think of the client's understanding of the therapeutic arena. They are around what one might call, I suppose, 'fully informed consent' or some such terminology. Now when I respond to you and say, "no, I don't", I am making the basic assumption that there is a high level of informed consent and understanding on the client's part of what the therapeutic process involves because, clearly, one of the very important and, it seems to me, powerful attributes of your own approach is that you have, if you like, a number of different modalities. For example, with some clients they are at one in the same time in a one to one relationship and perhaps also working in a group, yes; that in many other therapeutic traditions will be seen as a very difficult kind of, a very difficult kind of duality almost to hold in good, if you like, therapeutic tension. What I am saying is that the way in which you are actually presenting the therapeutic opportunities to clients takes into account that they will, if you like, experience different modalities in which you remain always the therapist but a one to one counselling situation, a psycho drama workshop and a holiday on the Agean are very clearly different environments, they are different contexts. So what would matter to me I think is the clients are fully, as it were, appraised that the totality of this experience is part really of the therapeutic work that you are undertaking and that you, no matter what the environment, remain consistently in the role of the therapist.
Q Thank you, that's very helpful. I think you have said that -- I think you have perhaps answered this question actually. I was just going to ask you what you think the value of creativity in psychotherapy as opposed to following a strict pre-determined line is, but I think you've perhaps already covered that unless there was anything else you have wanted to add?
A Well, I think what I want to add is that many clients who come for therapy are very very stuck. They may be stuck in habitual patterns of behaviour; they may be stuck really in historical past trauma of all kinds; essentially, they are, if you like, in a trap. And it seems to me that many people who are in that kind of predicament need, in fact, a really very creative, responsive reaction from their therapist if they are going to become unstuck. So the thought of a therapeutic profession which is drained of creativity means for me I think that large numbers of clients will never be helped.
Q Thank you. That is very helpful. I have got a 'yes or no' answer for you here. Do you think integrity and commitment are perhaps the most important qualities for a therapist?
A Yes, I do.
Q About what you know, from what you about me, and that is -- I know you've never been in a therapy session that I have been running, but do you think that I represent any sort of danger to clients or anyone else?
A No, I don't know believe that you present a danger.
Q Do you think the public would be in danger, or public confidence would be undermined if I were allowed to return to work?
A No.
Q Can I move on, back to the complainants for a moment, thank you.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Moved on to what, sorry?
MR GALE: Sorry, I'd just drifted away a little bit into this impairment and the role of the HPC, I was just going to come back to the complainants and the clients for a moment. I have racked my brains upwards and downwards and from side to side about why it is that people who were once very very enthusiastic about the therapy and very committed to it that they have with me; some of them wouldn't necessary have called it 'therapy', they might have called it 'work' or 'singing' even. Could you posit a guess or is there some research you could tell us about why people who were so committed should suddenly turn so violently anti?
A I can't actually put my finger on particular research not without, as it were, burrowing in my archives; so what I'm going to say now is I think coming very much more from a hunch than anything else. I think what can sometimes happen is that a client feels for whatever reason that the process that they were involved in, which they saw very much as the process that they themselves were in control of, they were steering it, they owned this process, they suddenly begin to feel that perhaps it wasn't really like that after all, that they were actually being manipulated, they were being if you like pushed rather than facilitated; and I have known that happen even with, if you like, what I might call the purest person centred practitioner, who has been standing over backwards, if you like, to ensure that the client takes full control of his or her own process. Now why that should happen is another matter. My own hunch, again, is that it may well be something to do either with a sudden resurgence of past experience or it may be the entry into that person's life of a new influence which actually wishes in some way or other to deride the past influences which have been important to the person in question.
Q I see. So it could be something coming back up in their own past or it could be the introduction of a new element into that lives?
A Yes.
Q That is very helpful, thank you.
A Well, let me say it's hunches, yes.
Q Yes.
A Yes.
Q But maybe that new element may be a relationship?
A It could be all sort of things.
Q With someone who was against the therapy?
A It could be all sorts of things, yes.
Q I think a problem for all of us involved in this enquiry, and I'm asking you this question because I think in the wicked world that we live in you have stood out as someone who says, 'well, I have my beliefs and I hold them very strongly and I live by them'. I have spoken to the Panel about errors or mistakes, breaches in my practice which I'm perfectly happy to admit to. I have also spoken to the Panel about the fact that there are certain elements of my practice, for example that I have been on holiday with clients, or that I spent Christmas Day with clients, or that clients have come to parties at my home, and I have said that I wouldn't back pedal on those issues because for me to back pedal on them would be to lose a vital part of my practice, but it would also be to betray the people who have benefitted from that work in the past; and I think the Panel might be helped, if you, if I could use the word without being insulting as a sort of 'grand old man of therapy', if you could comment on the fact that there are these issues that are part of my practice that I'm not willing to say were wrong because, I suppose, I've seen the evidence of them being right?
A Yes. Well, as you said earlier on, I value enormously a therapist's integrity and commitment and, as I understand your own practice and position, your integrity and your commitment are both very much bound up with what you have just been describing and exploring. So I think I would lose my respect for you if you were suddenly to say, 'all that was wrong'. It would seem to me that that would constitute, as far as I know you, a lack of integrity rather than an upholding of integrity. I think there's some something it's actually very well worth saying to the Panel, and that is that one of the things that we very much lack now in Britain as opposed to perhaps 30 odd years ago is what in the jargon is known as the 'therapeutic community'. There aren't all that many places these days where people can actually experience what one might call 'a total life situation' in which they can begin to heal. And I think what some of your work has been offering is a kind of built-in therapeutic community, and one of the things that that answers, of course, is the great question that's thrown at psychotherapy by very very many members of the public and it's this: What on earth good is it having these wonderful therapeutic relationships, which take place once, twice, three times or four times a week, which are if you like divorced from life; so that there is a kind of therapeutic bubble in which all sorts of interesting things may happen, but it doesn't actually really feed over into the real world. And I think part of your work, as I understand it, has been really to try and bridge that, to try and help people to see that therapeutic change is something which, if you like, permeates the totality of their life space. So for you, as it were, to renege on all that, as I understand it, would actually be to remove actually a central plank from your practice, let alone be, as it were, an act of almost self-betrayal and, as you were suggesting, perhaps a betrayal of clients over many many years who have clearly benefitted from precisely that total approach.
MR GALE: Thank you very much. I am sure I would enjoy asking you a lot more questions, but the idea of a therapeutic exchange between us is not what the Panel is here for. But Ms Jung might have some questions for you now, thank you.
THE CHAIR: Ms Jung?
PROFESSOR ROBERT THORNE
CROSS-EXAMINED BY MS JUNG
Q Professor Thorne, I just want to clarify you have read all the papers in this case, the statements of the witnesses, the exhibits?
A Yes, but I must say, of course, that that was a long time now. This case has been trundling on, as you know, for many many months; so, yes, I have read them all, yes.
Q And you've had detailed discussions with Mr Gale about the allegations --
A Yes.
Q -- that he faces?
A Yes.
Q And he's given you his account of what occurred?
A Yes.
Q And is it right that the statements that you make in your witness statement are your personal views on the basis of what Mr Gale has told you?
A Yes.
Q You've used the words "assumption" and your understanding of Mr Gale's practice quite a bit, I want to ask you about that. Is it right that -- I don't want to get into the ins and outs of what types of therapeutic approaches are right and wrong etc.
A No.
Q But would you agree that whether you take a very innovative approach or not in psychotherapy or counselling that you should always have the patient's well-being in your mind?
A Essential.
Q And that you must also have ethical principles in mind?
A Sure.
Q And, in fact, you said that -- you talked about fully informed consent?
A Yes.
Q You said that there is always a risk element in whatever you do. The question is whether the risk is to be taken for the benefit of the patient and their therapy?
A Yes.
Q And you said that you assumed that in Mr Gale's case that the patient always understood that he was a therapist whatever type of therapy they were undertaking with him?
A Yes, whatever the actual environment was.
Q Whatever the environment, whether it was one to one or group session or a holiday?
A Yes.
Q And so on.
A Yes.
Q If patients were not made clear, it was not made clear to the patients that, for example, a holiday was going to be a therapeutic session, for example?
A Or part of a therapeutic process.
Q Or part of a therapeutic process.
A Yes.
Q If it was not made clear to the patient that was the case, would you say or would you agree that that holiday then would be an unreasonable risk to take as an ethical therapist?
A I think it would be a very risky procedure, yes. When we use the word "unethical", of course, that also begs a number of other questions; but if, in fact, here was a client who was still, if you like, in a therapeutic process and it was now proposed that a holiday should be taken which, if you like, was totally to the side of the therapy which had no, if you like, therapeutic implications then that I would see as really a very risky procedure, yes.
Q And, as you said, the opinions that you have given in evidence today are on the basis that Mr Gale or you assumed that Mr Gale did make that clear to his clients?
A Yes.
Q When you say in your statement that you were, "in a position to make a judgment about Mr Gale's integrity, commitment and dedication to the well-being of his clients", is that on the assumption that the allegations that Mr Gale is facing are untrue?
A It's either on the assumption that they are untrue or that there has been, in fact, a very considerable misperception on the part of certain clients.
Q Did Mr Gale tell you during your discussions that he allowed patients to pick him up from airports because that's what they wanted to do?
A I don't recall whether he did or not.
Q Did he tell you that he let a client cut his hair because that would give her status because she was being allowed to cut the group leader's hair?
A I don't remember him telling me that that's why she was cutting his hair; I do remember, however, him telling me that she cut his hair.
Q Did he tell you why he let her cut his hair?
A I'm searching very hard in my memory and I can't actually really locate why. My sense is that it was, in fact, concerned with her well-being not, however, with her status.
Q What would your view be if Mr Gale told you that that is why he let his patient, his client cut his hair, because it would give her raised status in that she was cutting the group leader's hair; what is your view on that?
A Well, my view, again, would be what was the nature really of the exchange that went on between Mr Gale and the client? Where, as it were, within their therapeutic relationship did this particular episode or incident of the hair cutting feature? Which is a way of saying that if Mr Gale has said to this client, 'look, you'll feel so much better if you cut my hair because you will have had the privilege of cutting the hair of the group leader', yes, I would think that Mr Gale was suffering from sort of folly de grandeur.
Q What do you think about Mr Gale handing out T-shirts to clients with a blown up picture of himself on the front and "I'm his favourite" written across it?
A Well, that would depend I think really upon the total context of it, because I could well see that that could be part of what is essentially a very humorous fun loving kind of community. I wouldn't necessarily see something there which was sinister or pointing to a kind of grandiosity on Mr Gale's part. I would need to know a great deal more really about what gave raise to that particular manifestation.
Q I want to ask you about the cannabis allegation. Do you recall there's an allegation that Mr Gale smoked cannabis.
A Yes.
Q And encouraged --
A Yes.
Q His clients to do so?
A Yes.
Q What was the explanation he gave you as to that allegation?
A There was, as I remember it, a complete denial that that was the case.
Q Did he give any more details about it?
A No.
MS JUNG: Thank you. I don't have any more questions for you.
THE CHAIR: OK, I'll ask Professor Caplin if he has any questions.
MR GALE: I think you've forgotten me.
THE CHAIR: I always do this. I'm so sorry, Mr Gale. I am so keen for us to get our questions. It is now up to you to have the -- is there any re-examination based on Ms Jung's questions?
PROFESSOR ROBERT THORNE
RE-EXAMINED BY MR GALE
Q Yes. I think you can imagine in what you have called a therapeutic community that there might be some opposition to get my attention.
A Affirmation, yes.
Q Could you imagine that if this had been discussed at some length in the group, with Christmas coming up, that these T-shirts might be a way of trying to both open up and close down that discussion, given that all the people who wanted to be my favourite and all the other people involved in that therapeutic community got given a T-shirt at Christmas?
A It would certainly be a great leveller, yes.
Q Thank you. Well, the Panel will know what I said about having my hair cut and the person who cut my hair's status, and we will discuss afterwards whether Ms Jung was correct or not in the statement that she made about me. I hope I'm not suffering in your opinion from folly de grandeur?
A No.
MR GALE: Thank you. I don't think there is anything else I need to say that's of any help at this stage.
THE CHAIR: Right. We will move on to what I said before then. Professor Caplin, do you have any questions for this witness?
QUESTIONED BY PROFESSOR CAPLIN
Q Professor Thorne, I have a couple of questions.
A Yes.
Q In your evidence, at the beginning of your evidence you referred to Ms Gale being one of a small category of practitioners, a category so small that perhaps it had only one example within it?
A Yes.
Q You have also in your statement said that in your conversations and discussions with Mr Gale you have not anticipated the question to challenge and probe more deeply. Was the issue of him being a member of a small group, possibly the sole member of a group of practitioners, something that you have sought to probe, challenge and question?
A To some extent, yes, because I do recall times when we were very conscious of, in a sense, Mr Gale's isolation, that he doesn't actually have many fellow practitioners who actually, if you like, share his particular perception of the therapeutic process; and that leads to questions about his own vulnerability, his own, if you like, potential ex exposure. So, to that extent, yes, there was discussion around that.
Q Could you go a little bit further and say what those questions were that arise in that context of him being in such a small group?
A Well, I think the --
Q The vulnerabilities.
A The vulnerability arises from operating in different therapeutic contexts. I mean I alluded to one obvious one earlier on, that a therapist who is operating one to one relationships and also in groups and who is also, in fact, convening residential components, that inevitably leads to holding some really quite difficult tensions which are very demanding. I mean there is an issue, always there I think, how inadvertently confidentiality can be broken and I think you have seen one example of that. And if you are operating, in fact, in a way slightly semi-detached from mainstream therapeutic orientations, then I would suggest that actually, inevitably, puts you in a more vulnerable situation. A lot then depends upon the quality of the supervisor relationship that a practitioner can have and, clearly, in Mr Gale's case the whole issue of where his supervisory support was coming from was an important issue.
Q Does it put a greater burden on the therapist to ensure that there is perhaps more frequent or more intense supervision, and is there a burden also in choosing an appropriate supervisor?
A I think the answer to both of those questions is probably yes, that if you are working in the way that Mr Gale is actually working that is going to require, I think, fairly intensive and regular supervision; and there is also an issue I think in finding supervisors who have, as it were, sufficient understanding and overview of the different kind of contexts to be able to offer that supervision effectively. So I think the answer to your questions are both yes really.
Q And is it preferable in that context, is it preferable to have a supervisor who shares the same therapeutic approach or one who is at least sympathetic to that approach but doesn't necessarily follow it? I imagine that to find a supervisor who is disapproving of that approach would not be very constructive?
A No, no.
Q But to have one that is wholly convinced of the approach, it may be better to have a supervisor who is more constructively critical of the approach?
A I think, particularly, experienced therapists are always looking for supervisors who at one and the same time can be supportive and critical.
Q Right, that is very helpful. I have one further question. You have said in your statement that you have had professional discussions with Mr Gale on many occasions?
A Mmh.
Q Did you on any occasion ever attend any social events?
A No, I did not.
Q May I ask whether you were ever invited?
A I was invited on one occasion; I didn't accept the invitation.
PROFESSOR CAPLIN: Thank you very much for those helpful responses?
THE CHAIR: I will ask Mr Holloway to ask you questions now.
QUESTIONED BY MR HOLLOWAY
Q Professor Thorne, were you aware of these supervisory arrangements that were in place for Mr Gale?
A Yes.
Q And for the benefit of the Panel could you just let us know what you were aware of in terms of those arrangements?
A Well, as far as I recall, it seemed to me that the arrangements were adequate.
Q OK, that's fine. Given that you and Mr Gale in your conversations have taken an overview of the state of psychotherapy in Britain today?
A Yes.
Q From that position of an overview, why are the sacred cows and the tablets of stone, why are they there? How have they come to take such a kind of hegemonic proportions?
A I think one of the reasons is that much of the tablet of stone culture, if I can put it that way, has come from a particular psychotherapeutic orientation which, broadly speaking, is the psychodynamic approach and that has actually permeated into really the generality I think of psychotherapeutic counselling practice. So I think that's the reason that it's actually happened. I think, in fact, in recent times it's become very much more -- it's become very much more flexible; and the difficulty I think in all psychotherapeutic endeavour is to have boundaries which actually give safety and security, but actually offer therapists and their clients sufficient flexibility so that they are not straitjacketed and are worrying all the time whether they are somehow breaking rules. It's an extraordinarily difficult dilemma, and as I think of my own association, and the British Association of Counselling Psychotherapy, when the first ethical codes came in they were, in fact, incredibly rule based. The regulations were, as it were, multiple; and after a few years of that, the BACP I think in its wisdom decided that a fresh look was required, so that there is now an ethical framework which whilst still giving I think really very good and secure boundaries does actually permit a flexibility of practice which is actually very much more profitable.
Q So in practice, safety and security applies -- the notion of boundaries, in relation to safety and security, applies to the safety and security of clients clearly?
A Yes.
Q But also those boundaries providing safety and security for practitioners?
A Yes.
Q Is that part of your answer?
A Yes, it is, yes.
Q So when we are then flexing those boundaries or setting them across a wider spectrum of practice, is that what you meant by the vulnerability of Mr Gale in this particular area?
A Yes.
Q OK.
A Yes.
Q And in terms of those extended boundaries or widened or looser boundaries, what does that do to the safety and security of the clients, does that make the clients that bit more vulnerable as well?
A Not necessarily. I think, again, so much depends upon how far clients and therapists have actually negotiated the contractual arrangements governing really the therapeutic process, because there are clients who can feel people just as straitjacketed and hamstrung by overregulated therapy as there are those who may feel actually safe. We come back to, of course, to always this difficult issue of risk taking that it seems to me that in so many cases it is unlikely that therapeutic progress is going to be made if there is not some element of risk, and the discernment of the therapist is always to do with whether whatever risk is taken is, indeed, for the benefit of the client and the benefit really of the client's well-being, and there must inevitably from time to time by the odd mistake. But if you rule out, if you like, the whole element of risk from the therapeutic process, then I think with many clients you might as well not even bother to begin.
Q And I believe you suggested earlier that therein lies the wisdom and the expertise of the therapist?
A Yes.
Q But also the requirements and rigour of a robust supervisory process?
A Yes.
Q As well as CPD and all of that?
A Yes.
Q And I think one thing that you also mentioned earlier was the central importance of the client's sense of understanding of their place within that process?
A Yes.
Q And their place within the process of risk taking, is that right?
A Yes.
Q What would you expect to see in terms of information given or the kind of flexible contract given to clients to help them negotiate that kind of consensual process of therapeutic risk?
A Yes. I would expect in most cases some written information about the way in which a given therapist conceptualizes his or her therapeutic practice.
Q So some kind of theoretical framework?
A Yes. I would also expect quite a lot of discussion and interaction with clients, particularly at the outset of therapy, but also if the therapeutic process going to undergo any noticeable, as it were, change or development, then that is something which is, if you like, an ongoing issue really of ensuring the clients have a reasonable understanding of the processes to which they are committing themselves.
Q And would you except likely timeframe to come into that?
A Do you mean how long is it going to take to get better sort of thing?
Q Or how long might you reasonably expect to be in therapy for?
A That's a very much more difficult one. I think any therapist who sticks his or her neck out and says, you know, all be very in a year or two years.
Q Or 15 years?
A Yes. What I would say is that there should be, and I suppose I'm referring to my own practice here, there should be quite frequent reviews. Indeed, in my own practice I would say something like, 'well, let's see how we get on for the first six weeks and then take stock together and see where we've got to', and I would expect there to be a review process going on really which will give some indication, I think, to clients about how, if you like, they are doing.
Q OK.
A And, most importantly, of course how they think they are doing.
Q Right, of course. You talked very early on in relation to Mr Gale's questioning about the centrality of congruence and authenticity of the therapist?
A Mmh.
Q Is that always within a relational context? For example, is it always important that our ability to be congruent is always mediated by what the client needs to hear?
A Sorry?
Q We can have as a therapist a whole range of feelings in response to a client?
A Yes.
Q That we maybe in that instance are not clear what arises for us, what belongs to us.
A Yes.
Q And what might be in response directly to the client.
A Sure.
Q Is it important that we see congruence within the context of that relationship rather than just whatever it is that comes to our mind?
A Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
Q So there is a sense that congruence is relational?
A Yes, indeed.
Q And takes into account the client's needs?
A Yes.
Q And is located within the state of maturity of that relationship?
A Sure.
Q Right, thank you.
A If I can I just put that in a nutshell, it seems to me that any therapist is going to have 101 different thoughts and feelings flowing through him; and, again, the expertise of the therapist is to know when something is actually going on inside himself, which needs in some way to find expression if the client is, in fact, going to be helped and if the relationship, in fact, is going to be more productive; and probably a good 50 per cent of what is being experienced will never be uttered.
Q And would you say that part of that wisdom is an understanding of the receptiveness and readiness of the client to hear --
A Yes.
Q -- some of that filtered response?
A Yes, indeed, but it's nonetheless in that area that very often that risk taking is also an issue. I think, incidentally too, it is often much more difficult when one's thinking about therapist's congruence within the group setting, because what in fact may be wholly, as it were, appropriate, perhaps indeed even to some extent necessary for two or three members of a group, it may not be so for others; but, of course, you have then the group dynamic which can very cope with that, but it's undoubtedly the case I think that the whole issue of authenticity and congruence and so on within a group setting has a number of new dynamics.
Q We are a long way, I think from the -- in congruence and authenticity, we are a long way from the protocol driven process of, for example, cognative behaviour therapy.
A Yes.
Q Or the very opaque presence of the analytical therapist?
A Sure.
Q What kind of demands do you think that puts upon the practitioner who works in a such a creative, improvisational, open and congruent way?
A The main demand, I think, is for continual self-reflectiveness. I think a practitioner who is working with congruence as one of, if you like, the principle parts of his therapeutic onward and time has to be a person of immense self-reflectiveness and self-awareness. There is an incredible, in a sense, demand for that; because there is, if you like, in that sense no particular rule book which can be taken down from the shelf which is going to help. I'm not suggesting that psychoanalysts have rule books they can take down to help, but they do have some kind of really quite elaborated structure and, certainly, cognative behaviour therapists. I think somebody who is working in this very much more relational way has to be, if you like, extraordinarily self-aware and self-reflective.
Q And aware of the process of the other?
A Yes.
Q Are you familiar at all with the notion of relational reflexivity that John Bernard --
A Yes, indeed.
Q Just for the benefit of the Panel, I wonder if you could give us a quick overview of that?
A Yes, it is simply that my awareness of what is going on within myself, within my own process has also to be, if you like, accompanied by a deeply empathic awareness of what is going on in the other person, that there has to be that sense of, if you like, reflectiveness between the two.
Q Thank you. So in the context of a session referring to somebody as "a daft bitch" who has just made a disclosure of some difficult feelings towards you and a difficult conversation, would that seem from the transcripts of JB to indicate either a high level of relational reflectiveness or, indeed, a level of filtering in response to the client's needs?
A Again, that is a very difficult one to answer, because on the face of it it does not appear to be that at all. It feels, if you like, like something which is coming from the therapist's own gut which has little concern for the effect upon the other. In other words, it feels deeply unempathic, yes. On the face of it, it looks pretty grim. But I don't know what, in fact, the overall ambience of that particular group has been and how that is likely to be received by the person or other members of the group. I certainly know from my own experience that sometimes what is heard or read, as it were, in the code light of day sounds extraordinarily unempathic is, in fact, for the recipient spot on.
Q But you would think that it was within the remit of the wise and experienced therapist to kind of go through a nano second's filtering process?
A Absolutely, yes.
Q Thank you.
A Yes.
MR HOLLOWAY: I have no further questions for you, Professor Thorne. Thank you very much.
QUESTIONED BY THE CHAIR
Q Just for your information, my questions are not going to be nearly as technical as that. In fact, I only use one long word I reckon. The second thing is there are just three of them. When you were talking about the contract between a therapist and his or her client, and you mentioned that there was one on one therapy and then it could move into group therapy or in this particular case, psycho drama etc.
A Yes.
Q And you said that the contract could change as you went along. And you said the contract should be noted?
A Mmh.
Q Now I noted your word "noted". Does that mean, is that just a figure of speech or do you think that should be documented?
A It was actually a figure of speech but I don't think it's no bad thing if it's documented.
Q And at each stage should the therapist ensure that the client has understood that the contract may change from various forms of therapy?
A I think what's important is that the client understands that what is actually happening is a development and an elaboration, if you like, of the therapeutic arena and what the implications are for the different aspects of that arena.
Q And could it be at a period later that the client could not remember that, if it wasn't noted? I mean do you think that's of sufficient importance that the client would remember that at some later date, that those limits, if you like, or however you want put them, were explained to him or her; would you find it strange that they didn't remember that?
A I would find that strange.
Q Right. And would you find it strange if there was a larger number of them or more than one person that said they didn't remember that at some later stage?
A Yes, I would find that strange.
Q Thank you. The next thing, just to ask you again you were asked and I don't think it's denied by Mr Gale that there were a large number of parties and social events and holidays that his client took part in; and, in fact, we have heard of one holiday where it was just himself and the client that went on holiday together. And you said that it was important that the therapist remained consistently in the role of the therapist during these particular events. That must be very difficult to do. If you go on a holiday one to one and you go off, as it was in this particular case, motorcycling around Spain with a client, how can you consistently remain in the role of the therapist, how would you do that?
A Yes, what I would actually do is that if that was actually going to be part of our process together, I would make absolutely certain that there was time to reflect upon what that particular kind of event has meant for the client.
Q After it's finished?
A Yes.
Q What about before it starts?
A And an agreement that that is what would actually happen.
Q And would that need to be a written agreement?
A I think not necessarily. There, again, I suppose my answer would be the same as the one I gave before: It would be no bad thing if it was written, but I wouldn't see it as a necessity. What I would see as a necessity is that we are going to do something really rather different, all right; 'we are going off to do this' or whatever it is. I mean in my own case I might occasionally have gone for a walk with a client.
Q Right.
A I might occasionally have had a cup of tea with a client, yes.
Q Yes.
A But that would have happened with prior agreement that we were going to do that and that we were going to actually then reflect on that subsequently.
Q And if, subsequent to that event, your client said there was no such discussion about it, what would you think?
A Well, I would think that either I had been extraordinarily obtuse really in my utterance or that this client was suffering from amnesia.
Q Right, that's fine, thank you. The next thing if -- I don't quite know whether you keep your, we have had discussions with various therapists and some I think like to keep their therapy, if you like, to office hours, as it were, and some will give counselling out of office hours if a client phones up and has a particular problem and it's a Sunday morning or whatever. Do you feel that if, and I don't think there is no question of that's necessarily wrong in any way, I guess it's just a difference in style or approach; but do you feel that if a therapist does give advice or counselling, I used the words "out of hours".
A Yes.
Q Do you feel that they still have the same duty of care to that client than if it was "in office hours"?
A Yes.
Q Right. We have heard at various parts of this hearing about Mr Gale would often counsel out of hours and give advice to people, and often things were done for him like mending his electronic equipment, picking him up from the airport etc., and that was portrayed, if you like, as a sort of a favour, 'I've done a favour to you because I have listened to you on a Saturday afternoon or whatever; therefore, you are doing a favour for me by mending my car or fixing my computer or picking me up' or whatever; do you have a view on that?
A Well, in terms of Mr Gale's practice and in terms of his wish really to create a total therapeutic environment, it seems to me that that kind of reciprocity could actually legitimately feature. The difficulty that I have is that I cannot even vaguely conceptualize myself doing it. So I have to put myself, if I possibly can, into the framework of Mr Gale's particular therapeutic practice; and when I do that I can see that there is a really very interesting issue I think about reciprocity and mutuality and, if you like, the sharing within the therapeutic process which doesn't make that behaviour seem to me totally outlandish. But then I have to come back to my own framework and it's a rather different picture that I have.
Q And I don't wish to put words into your mouth, but you would view that as an interesting issue then, would you?
A Yes.
THE CHAIR: I have no other questions. Do you have any?
MR HOLLOWAY: I have just one more on that question of reciprocity and mutuality.
A Yes.
Q There is, however, an asymmetry in the relationship in that there is a fee charged for formal sessions; how would you think out loud those two issues kind of sit alongside each other?
A They sit with difficulty but not impossibility, and I can speak now from my own framework.
Q Thank you.
A That is that my hope for many of my own clients would be that they arrive at a point where they feel a mutuality of respect and responsiveness with me. They may still actually until the last session, they will still be paying me a fee but that doesn't alter the fact that in terms of the relational dynamic we have moved from a position probably of very considerable dependence to one now of mutual respect and understanding.
MR HOLLOWAY: OK, thank you.
THE CHAIR: Anything else. OK, right the Panel have asked all their questions I think. Ms Jung, is there anything, any supplementary question that you would like to ask based purely on the Panel's questions?
MS JUNG: No, thank you, sir.
THE CHAIR: Is there anything you would like to ask?
PROFESSOR ROBERT THORNE
FURTHER EXAMINED BY MR GALE
Q I have a couple of things, yes, please. I can't remember if I have addressed this in "Gale Force 10", but just because the Panel are not experienced in psychotherapy, would you be just a little bit clearer about the word "advice" in that I don't think of myself, but I can understand that someone as what happened on one occasion phones me up at 3 o'clock in the morning and says, "my wife is cowering in the corner, she's terrified, I don't know what to do, I'm sorry that I phoned up in the middle of the night". I can imagine in the sort of small a "advice" way you could consider that giving advice.
A Yes.
Q But I think it's probably true that most therapists, me included, don't give advice either because they don't think it's a good idea or because they think that the clients wouldn't follow it any way; would you agree with that?
A Yes, I would. I think counselling and psychotherapy are not about advice giving, which doesn't mean to say that occasionally it may be appropriate to give advice. If a client asks me where the loo is, I'm not going to say, 'are you feeling in need'. I'm actually going to say, 'second door on the right'. But advice is not what psychotherapy and counselling are about.
Q Should I buy this house or, you know, should I get divorced, I don't think those would be questions that you would think would be appropriate for a therapist to say yes or no but more, 'well, do you want to talk about it'?
A Yes, 'let's explore that together'.
Q The Panel quite rightly asked you about what it feel like to you, would you think it was strange if one or more people forgot the contract that was made with them?
A Yes.
Q And I have got sort of sensitive to this partly because Mr Griffiths has helped me to become sensitive to it, and I thought was that strange that they have all forgotten or was it strange maybe they were never told? So I don't know if you can answer that or whether you would like me to put that more as a specific question?
A It would be very strange if, in fact, this contractual arrangement had been discussed and they had all forgotten.
Q So would you assume that maybe they're forgetting on purpose?
A Well, it does should like a corporate amnesia; I don't want to make a judgment about it.
Q Supposing, I mean I'm as you know not someone who makes extensive notes, but I did for example ask people to like in a long holiday to think about their therapy and write about it. There were voice group minutes that were kept. So if somebody said, 'I don't remember this ever being said to me', yet it was quite clearly there in the minutes or in the homework, would you think maybe they were intentionally not telling the truth?
A It certainly would be one hypothesis that I would have to entertain.
Q Or that perhaps, alternatively, for some psychological reason they just sort of wiped it out of their memory banks?
A Yes.
Q Or that they were perhaps remembering it differently to the way the people who wrote the minutes were remembering it?
A Mmh.
Q Because we have had issues -- I'm asking you this question, because there have been issues where people have said something in their witness statements?
THE CHAIR: I didn't ask questions about that, Mr Gale.
MR GALE: I'm sorry.
THE CHAIR: You are treading into areas that the Panel did not ask.
MR GALE: I beg your pardon.
THE CHAIR: I just asked about the contract.
MR GALE: OK, fine. Sorry, I am getting into a sort of discussion with you. And the other question I was going to ask you was I think you didn't accept that invitation because you were at Papworth Hospital at the time.
A I was.
Q Not as a visitor?
A No.
Q As an inmate?
A Yes.
Q Thank you.
A Well, I was on my way to Papworth Hospital, to be precise.
Q I just want to be clear that you didn't refuse the invitation --
A I didn't refuse the invitation on principle, no.
MR GALE: No.
THE CHAIR: Right. Well, thank you very much, Professor Thorne, for coming along at a thrice arranged appointment. You will now be pleased to know that the questioning has finished. Your voice has held up remarkably well, which is good. Just two things to say. This is a public hearing. You are very welcome to say for the rest of the hearing or the rest of the day, if you wish. I just must warn you I don't know whether any of the witnesses are known to you, but there's a general witness warning: Please do not discuss the evidence that you have given with anybody else who is likely to give evidence please.
THE WITNESS: No, I certainly won't.
THE CHAIR: Just thank you very much and you are now free to go.
THE WITNESS: Thank you very much indeed.
THE CHAIR: I suggest that we break now for ten minutes and start the next witness, Mr Ramsey, at 3 o'clock.
MR GALE: I did warn the witnesses to bring a book.
THE CHAIR: OK. The only thing is, just as I said at the beginning we are sort of a little after the time. I think we were supposed to see Mr Ramsey at 2:45, so I would not want to go on after 4 o'clock.
MR GALE: I wasn't planning to ask him a number of questions.
THE CHAIR: But this is how long is a piece of string, Mr Gale. This is impossible. I am looking at you but I am just saying to everybody, we want to finish at 4 o'clock.
MR GALE: I have no problem with that.
THE CHAIR: OK, we will come back at 3 o'clock for the next witness, thank you.
(Short adjournment)
THE CHAIR: Right, I shall just ask whether he wants to be initialized or whether he wishes to be known by his name.
MR GALE: On that issue, one of the witnesses who is coming next week I referred to by name, and I just wonder if the shorthand writer could be asked to changed that to the initialization that she has had all the way through, which is MG1.
THE CHAIR: I think that's OK. There are no problems, is there, Mr Russen?
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: No.
THE CHAIR: Yes, I see no reason why that should not be allowed.
MR GALE: Is Mr Ramsey coming down.
THE CHAIR: I think that is where Mr Bryant is now, yes.
MR GALE: I am sure we will finish before 4:00.
THE CHAIR: I am sitting opposite the clock, so I am sure we will.
MR MALCOLM RAMSEY, SWORN
THE CHAIR: Please have a seat. Good afternoon. As a record is being made of these proceedings, if I could ask are you happy to be known by your full name; can we call you by your full name?
THE WITNESS: You may.
THE CHAIR: Or you could be initialized?
THE WITNESS: I'm happy to be called by my full name.
THE CHAIR: So I shall call you Mr Ramsey then.
THE WITNESS: That is fine.
THE CHAIR: Good afternoon, Mr Ramsey. Thank you very much for coming along to give evidence, and I know for a fact you have probably had the time and date for you giving evidence changed a couple of times. That is purely down to me. I was taken ill a couple of weeks ago and so these proceedings had to be halted, and then they have started again today. So thank you very much for agreeing to give evidence after the things have been changed. You are going to be asked a number of questions from people around this table. So I think it is only right that we introduce ourselves to you so you know who we are and where we come from when we ask you the various questions. So I will start off with myself. My name is Ian Griffiths. I am a lay member with the Health Professions Council and I am chairman of this particular Panel. On my left?
MR HOLLOWAY: Peter Holloway, the arts therapist Panel member.
THE CHAIR: On my right?
PROFESSOR CAPLIN: I am David Caplin, and I am a lay partner.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Good afternoon, Mr Ramsey. I am Simon Russen. I am the Legal Assessor.
THE HEARINGS OFFICER: Good afternoon. I am James Bryant, the hearing officer for the HPC.
MS JUNG: I am Bo-eun Jung. I am presenting the case on behalf of the Health Professions Council.
MR GALE: And you know I'm Derek Gale, and this is Ms Martin, we call her part of our amateur legal team.
THE CHAIR: If I could just ask you, Mr Ramsey, if you can keep your voice up so that we can all hear the answers that you give to the questions; and, also, just to formally remind you that the gentleman sitting on your left is taking a note of what's being said. Having said all that, I'll pass you over to Mr Gale who will start the questions off.
MR MALCOLM RAMSEY
EXAMINED BY MR GALE
Q Thank you. Have you got your witness statement in front of you?
A I have, yes.
Q Are you Malcolm Ramsey?
A I am.
Q Good. And I'm not going to read your address out because there has been some pressure put on people associated with these proceedings, but is that your address?
A Yes, it is.
Q And if you just quickly flip over through your statement to the last page, is that your signature?
A And that is my signature.
Q Is that your statement as you last saw it when you signed it?
A That's right.
Q OK. You don't need to check that?
A No.
Q Is there anything in it that you'd want to change or do you still hold to it as it was written then?
A No, it's a reasonable statement.
Q OK. I am going to ask you some questions. Strangely, you are asked to reply to the Panel.
A Indeed.
Q Then Ms Jung will ask you some questions. Then there is what's called corrective questioning. Then the Panel will ask you questions and, again, there is the possibility for corrective questioning; and if at any time you feel it's all too much for you, we can all have a break for a moment or two. I'd just like to ask you, we have had experts on psychotherapy as witnesses have, I would describe you as a lay person with an interest in the subject, some knowledge of the subject?
A A lay person who has a broad general training in the social sciences, including a PhD in criminology and who's spent the last 10 or 15 years researching, in particular, drug use and mental health issues.
Q You have said in your witness statement that you're I've written down "amazed" here, perhaps that's true, that people who were enthusiastic supporters of the life and broader set of activities of the Gale Centre should be complaining now. Could you enlarge on that a bit, please, and if you're going to refer to any of people you met at the Gale Centre could you use their initials which are on that sheet in front of you?
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: It's there already, is it?
MR GALE: Yes it's on the table.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: I'm sorry, I didn't realise it was there.
MR GALE: So if you could just say a little bit about why you were so surprised?
A Yes, the complainants, as I understand it, who they are, they were enthusiastic participants in the life of the Centre for a while least. I can remember one of them, let's just say "G", the Australian, that's probably sufficient, who explained to me --
Q That's GS?
A Yes. Who explained to me that he was moving to Loughton precisely because he was so impressed with what Derek Gale had to offer. He wanted to be a bit closer to hand. I suppose he could be living, moving anywhere within London, but that's what he said to me.
Q Thank you. Actually, GS has been withdrawn from these proceedings, it's all a bit complicated.
A Yes.
Q And I don't think you knew IJ, but I think you had some acquaintanceship with -- if you can look on this piece of paper here if you need to check who they are; some acquaintanceship with PC and GD.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Well, I think you are asking specific questions, I think Mr Ramsey should specifically look at these so he knows who you are asking about.
MR GALE: Yes. So --
THE WITNESS: I need to look at this, do I?
THE CHAIR: You do.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Yes.
MR GALE: So I think you knew PC and GD, not necessarily intimately but you met them?
A PC, oh it's under "P", is it? PC, right, yes, only a bit I guess.
Q And GD?
A And GD, yes, perhaps a little better.
Q Would you be surprised to hear that, according to the evidence presented by the HPC, that they say they gained nothing from working with me?
A I would be surprised at this, certainly knowing G a bit better, GD. She seemed to be involved. I must say I wasn't tracking the progress of people's treatment in detail, but she was around and she was taking part in the life at the Centre, as you might put it. She seemed to me to be a pretty enthusiastic person for a period of time. As I mentioned in my statement, there was turnover and people came and went, but certainly for a while she would have been among the enthusiasts.
Q I have asked the person concerned their permission to ask you this question. Do you remember one woman who was very quiet and had quite a lot of difficulty in communicating and great difficulty in singing?
A I can think of at least one person in this category.
Q Did you notice any particular, I mean from a layman's -- as you say, you've got quite a wide purview, did you notice any particular changes in her that were obvious over the period of time that you saw her at the Gale Centre?
A Absolutely. I certainly noticed people blossoming and flourishing definitely and making progress and forming relations with each other sometimes. I certainly noticed a positive atmosphere that was good for people.
Q Thank you. You said in your paragraph 9 that you think of my work more as educational than psychotherapy, could you enlarge on that in any way?
A Well, I doubt that your psychotherapy was the conventional psychotherapy of the traditional kind, let's put it like that. You were offering something a little different. But there's plenty of research to show that it's not the sort of structure just of treatment that is what counts in terms of effectiveness. It's the way things are delivered. It's the setting the atmosphere. It's the character of the person who is involved in delivering that treatment and whatever it might be. I'm using the word "treatment" in a fairly broad and general sense of the word here hour, whatever you're trying to do to help somebody else.
Q Thank you. I mean obviously many of the people who worked at the Gale Centre would not have had obvious or manifest psychological problems, but some of them did. Was that ever obvious to you that you thought, 'well, that person's obviously a client because he seems to have a problem'?
A No, I don't think that was something that occurred to me. I obviously wasn't probing as to what had brought them to the Gale Centre, but people were getting on with their lives. You know, we all try to get on with our lives as best we can.
Q So did you ever meet somebody sort of three or four times through coming to the end of workshop concerts and think, 'well, maybe that person's improved' or something?
A Absolutely. As I have mentioned, there were clearly people who were improving.
Q What was your impression of voice group concerts?
A They were moving events, actually. I think I have described them reasonably fully in my statement. Events where somebody who wasn't necessarily the most technically proficient but who was giving it their all, you know, was really putting themselves into the workshop, the performance, and was getting something, a lot out of it, partly as a shared event, you know, in a supportive context. Something had been brought out and they were developing visibly.
Q And did you perhaps on occasions remark that somebody improved a great deal in their singing from one year to the next?
A And some people did improve technically as well, of course.
Q What would you say about the notion that I can't sing?
A Well, as it says in the statement you might not be suitable for the Royal Opera House, but you can make a good bash at 'Old Man River'.
Q Thank you. What did you make of the demonstrations of voice work that you saw at the Gale Centre?
A This was about developing people, encouraging them to do something they hadn't done before, to bring out something that was latent in them and help them forward in life; and some of these people had some sort of professional interest in those kind of things; they had some interests in the arts in some way or another maybe a professional interest. By no means all, of course. It was a more personal thing for the others.
Q You have occasionally been to parties or Christmas lunch or something at my house, and you have met other people who have been clients; that is true, isn't it?
A Mmh.
Q Did these people seem relaxed to you about your knowing that they were my clients?
A Yes. As I have mentioned, I wasn't probing as to exactly why people were involved in the life of the Centre and exactly what sort of therapy process they might have been going through and the sequence they might have been -- that wasn't the sort of thing I was spending a lot of time, I wasn't spending any time discussing. But, yes -- I mean do you want to sort of take that question any further forward in any way?
Q Well, did people occasionally say to you, 'I've work with Derek and this is what I have worked on', or 'this is what I've achieved on it'?
A By and large, not directly commenting on the therapy sessions, I would think it fair to say. But people enjoyed the life of the Centre and I had the sense of people who were participating in a process. I would pick up indirect references to sessions with yourself and so forth occasionally. Of course, that happened. As I say, I never picked up anything that was less than positive.
Q Thank you. Did it seem to you obvious that my relationship with the clients you saw at my house or at the Gale Centre was different to my relationship with you as a friend, in the sense that I was their therapist and you were just my friend?
A Yes. I mean at all times I think you were careful to bear in mind the fact that they were your clients and that I was a friend and we were in different categories.
Q Thank you. I think you said that you researched into drugs for 15 years, did you say?
A Yes.
Q Did you ever hear anything or find anything out about a pin being used to hold a cannabis cigarette or a "joint" as it's often called?
A I mean I think I have heard this way of facilitating the use of cannabis, that's about as far as I would go.
Q You haven't seen it being done?
A I have not seen it being done.
Q You have visited --
A And certainly not at the Gale Centre.
Q I was going to ask you this question, you've visited my house many times over the last 15 years, have you ever seen me or anyone else in my presence using cannabis?
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Over the last how many years, sorry, 15, did you say?
MR GALE: Yes 1989.
A It's really 20 years.
Q OK. My maths has been criticised before in this hearing. Have you ever seen me or anyone else in my presence using cannabis?
A No.
Q And I think you said in your witness statement specifically during the years 2003/4?
A Specifically then, yes.
MR GALE: I think your witness statement was pretty clear in itself. I am just having a look if there's -- no, yes, that is all the questions that I want to ask you.
THE CHAIR: Thank you, Mr Gale. Ms Jung?
MR MALCOLM RAMSEY
CROSS-EXAMINED BY MS JUNG
Q Mr Ramsey, can I ask you to look at the schedule of names in front of you, if you can familiarise yourself with KT.
A KT, yes.
Q Do you recall attending or did you attend a birthday party of KT's at Mr Gale's house in around 2003?
A That is quite likely, yes. There were a lot of different parties, so precisely what each one was in honour of and they were often in honour of more than one thing but that's quite probable. I certainly was and have been a reasonably frequent attender there.
Q I'm going to hand you up a couple of documents which I just want you to look at myself, and I don't want you to comment on them for now?
MR GALE: Do we know what these documents are?
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Well, I think you can probably imagine what they are.
MR GALE: Well, I don't think they can be handed up now; they have not been brought into evidence.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: I think they can. No, it is perfectly proper in cross-examination.
MR GALE: Can I speak to Ms Jung about it
(Briefly confers with Ms Jung).
MR GALE: And you think this is OK?
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: I'll keep proper tabs on the way this progresses. To be clear, Mr Ramsey, you are not being asked to express any comment about these until Ms Jung asks you a specific question.
MS JUNG: In fact, could I ask you to look at those now and then put them face down on the table after you have done so.
A Right.
Q I'm going to suggest, Mr Ramsey, that Mr Gale did smoke cannabis at a birthday party of KT's in around 2003, and that if you do not know about that either that's because it wasn't in your presence, or because you weren't presence at that party, or because you're saying that he never smoked cannabis when, in fact, you know that he did?
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Can I venture a suggestion? Having seen those photographs, are you now able to say if you were present at an event disclosed by them?
THE WITNESS: There is a T-shirt which would sort of help date the event to some degree, but it could be more than one event.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Well, what about the people, have a look again and see if you recognise any of the people?
THE WITNESS: Well, it's clear that Derek is rolling a hand rolled cigarette.
MR GALE: No, you mustn’t say that.
THE WITNESS: I mustn’t say that.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: I think the starting point of this is to identify if you were or, indeed, might have been present at an event disclosed in a photograph. I just suggested to you that it might be sensible to look at the photographs of the people, obviously not Mr Gale whom you know but any of the other people shown in the photographs.
A Yes, I can make out a couple of people.
Q Whom you have previously seen?
A Yes.
Q And --
A In one and there's nobody else in the other.
Q And in the one that shows somebody else, do you recall if you were present at a birthday party for that person?
A I would find it impossible to say precisely which party now seven years later I did and didn't go to. I didn't go to absolutely every event at the Gale Centre but I was there for most I reckon, very nearly all I would say.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: It just seemed to be that we'd gone a bit speedily over the foundation questions, but Ms Jung may have some further questions.
MS JUNG: I was going to suggest that Mr Gale, in fact, did smoke cannabis at his parties in the presence of clients?
THE WITNESS: Well, if he did he did it very fleetingly and out of my sight; and there's one thing to be hand rolling a cigarette, which I think he might have done have occasionally, but I certainly did not see him smoking cannabis.
MS JUNG: Thank you. I don't have any more questions for you.
MR GALE: Would you like to turn the photographs over because they haven't yet been brought into evidence? Thank you,
THE CHAIR: Do you have any re-examination, Mr Gale?
MR MALCOLM RAMSEY
RE-EXAMINED BY MR GALE
Q I suppose there's only one question which is, of course, you would have only come to parties you were invited to?
A Of course.
Q There might well have been parties that you weren't invited to?
A I might not have been invited to each and every party, that's absolutely right; I might have been away at the time of the party.
Q If this party were dated would you be able to look in your diary and see if you were there or not?
A Not as far as back as 2003 or thereabouts, I wouldn't be keeping a diary from, a home diary from that kind of point in the past.
MR GALE: Thank you. At this stage I have not got any more questions.
THE CHAIR: Do you have any questions?
MR HOLLOWAY: No.
PROFESSOR CAPLIN: No.
THE CHAIR: I have got one question, Mr Ramsey. How often would you visit the Gale Centre in a typical month?
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Sorry, to interrupt. Do you mean the Gale Centre, or do you mean the Gale Centre and/or Mr Gale's home?
QUESTIONED BY THE CHAIR
Q That's what I mean, thank you. Mr Russen corrected me, the Gale Centre and/or Mr Gale's home?
A Once a month or less, I would expect.
Q And when you were there and you met his clients, was that in the capacity of Mr Gale's friend?
A That's right.
THE CHAIR: OK, fine. I have no other questions. Anything arising from my question, such as it was? Do you have anything, Ms Jung?
MS JUNG: No.
THE CHAIR: Mr Gale?
MR MALCOLM RAMSEY
FURTHER EXAMINED BY MR GALE
Q I was just doing a quick count-up in my head about how often you were probably at our house, and I was thinking probably about four times a year on official business and probably three or four times a year when it was just you, me and my wife?
MS JUNG: Is that a question or?
MR GALE: Would you agree with that?
THE WITNESS: Something of that kind. I would say it would be less than once a month in whatever it is, and it would be a few times, sometimes for an event at the Centre which would spill over in the house, and sometimes just a more purely social event.
THE CHAIR: Sorry, I said I only had the one question but your question prompts one of mine. What do you mean by "official business"?
MR GALE: Well, for example if he was invited to an end of workshop concert.
THE CHAIR: I see, yes.
MR GALE: Something that was being organised specifically for the Centre.
THE CHAIR: I understand, OK. Anything else? No. OK, fine. Well, thank you very much, Mr Ramsey, for coming along and giving us your evidence. It's now finished. This is a public hearing. You are very welcome -- although you are the last witness today, so there would not be any point in you staying today. But there are several other days, and if you wish to return that is fine. I just need to give you the general witness warning that there are other witnesses for Mr Gale that are likely to be known to you, I'm sure there would be from what you say about your visits to the Gale Centre. So please could I just ask you not to discuss the evidence that you have given with anybody else who is likely to be coming along.
THE WITNESS: That's fine. I've got a job of work to do, and I shan't be coming back to these events, I don't suppose.
THE CHAIR: No, I shouldn't think so, but thank you very much. Please, you are free to lever now, thank you. That was admirable timekeeping. Just thinking ahead to tomorrow, you are presumably going to make an application at some time, Ms Jung, are you?
MS JUNG: Sir, yes.
THE CHAIR: And when would be the appropriate time for you to do that, do you think?
MS JUNG: Sir, I was intending to make that application first thing tomorrow morning.
THE CHAIR: OK, would it be helpful if we -- we are due to start at, where are we, at 10:30 with witness SC. I have no problem getting here at 10 o'clock, would it be OK for everybody? Anybody got any problems? Can I suggest that we start at 10 o'clock then? Dependent on what's brought up then, is that likely to disrupt the day? The thing I am most concerned about is, in view of what Mr Gale told us this morning, I wouldn't want to disrupt in any way Mr Lenkiewicz and his 1 o'clock telephone call; because, in view of what you said, that might be the only chance that we have got of actually talking to him. So if we get too involved in anything else in the morning, then I think we should all make an effort to say that that period of time, 1 o'clock until whatever time Mr Lenkiewicz can do, that we would definitely here that evidence; and it could be that if we are in some other discussion, we might have to break off, but hopefully we won't.
MR GALE: I have told all my witnesses the times are approximate.
THE CHAIR: OK, fine. The only one that it might -- if we start to discuss this other matter, whatever it is, at 10 o'clock, it might be that SC might not necessarily be 10:30, but again who knows until we actually...
MR GALE: She's not got a problem with that.
THE LEGAL ASSESSOR: Can I just mention in relation to Mr Lenkiewicz, the technology is arranged is it?
THE HEARINGS OFFICER: The technology will be arranged once everybody has departed the room and tested, so hopefully.
MR GALE: I think my plan is to be reasonably brief with him, to give time for yourselves and Ms Jung to ask questions,
THE CHAIR: I think if you can plan your tack that way, Mr Gale, that be sensible; because I do know that myself and my colleagues do have a number of questions, and I would suspect that Ms Jung probably does as well. So the more time, the more of the hour that we can have with him the better. However, in saying that I don't want you to feel constrained in any way; you have got to conduct the witnesses the way that you feel.
MR GALE: Well, his witness statement is quite clear about what he is saying.
THE CHAIR: It is, absolutely. Having said that, unless anybody has got any other business for today I shall draw a veil on today's proceedings and we shall start again at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. Thank you all.
MR GALE: Thank you very much.
(The hearing adjourned at 3:58 pm to 10:00 am
on Wednesday 8th April 2009)
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