‘Wholly inappropriate’: High Court dismisses appeal of farrier who punched and kicked pony 

A decision to remove a farrier who punched and kicked a horse from the professional register has been upheld in the High Court.

Andrew Bagnall had appealed the decision of the Farriers Registration Committee (FRC) disciplinary committee, that his behaviour had amounted to serious professional misconduct and that he should be struck off, but Mr Justice Eyre dismissed it on 17 July.

The disciplinary committee had heard a complaint against Mr Bagnall last October, regarding the incident in October 2022. Mr Bagnall had been at the home of Mr and Mrs Davies, trimming the feet of their 13-year-old daughter Sophie’s pony Shakira.

Sophie and her mother were there when Shakira bit Mr Bagnall’s head. It was alleged that Mr Bagnall punched the pony, then “followed that with a further attack in which he kicked the pony several times and punched her again”. The farrier denied punching or kicking the pony, saying that other than the trimming, his only physical contact with Shakira had been as he lifted his elbow to protect himself when she bit him.

The FRC committee found the first allegation of punching was not established but the second, the kicking and punching, had happened, and that this was serious misconduct for which the appropriate sanction was removal from the register. Mr Bagnall appealed the finding of misconduct and the sanction, but Justice Eyre found that “there is no substance in the grounds whether considered separately or cumulatively and the appeal is to be dismissed”.

Mr Bagnall had told the FRC committee that the pain when he was bitten was “excruciating”, and that he had “instinctively responded” by raising his arm, which caught the pony on the jaw. He denied punching or kicking Shakira.

But the committee thought it “highly improbable” that Mrs Davies and her daughter would “collude to produce an entirely false account of the respondent kicking the pony several times and then punching the pony”.

The panel also noted that Mrs Davies called a vet “almost immediately” after the incident, to say the pony had been punched and kicked, and a vet stated that the owner was concerned about possible trauma to the pony’s belly. It was also agreed that Mr Bagnall had left the yard without seeking payment for any of the work he had done, which the committee found “indicates acceptance on his part that things had gone wrong during this appointment”.

The committee took into account the fact the incident came after Mr Bagnall had been bitten, which “triggered a wholly unjustifiable but impulsive reaction”, and accepted that he had shown insight in accepting the finding of serious misconduct “without further argument”. They noted he was “clearly a highly skilled farrier”, respected by clients and other professionals. But they found the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigation.

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