Roger Windsor. MBE. MA (Cantab), BSc (Edin) BVM&S, MRCVS.

Roger Windsor, a trustee of Farmtalking and one of the most senior, experienced and well respected of veterinary surgeons, has found it necessary to resign from the R.C.V.S. Disciplinary Committee.

(Readers may remember that last year it was Roger who alerted the President of the R.C.V.S. Roger Eddy, and myself,  to the fact that for a vet to sign the Form 'A' authorising the slaughter of healthy animals, amounted to a 'false certificate'. see-Illegal Killing)

Roger's reasons for his resignation were given to the College Council by intervention at their meeting last Friday 6th June and are published here.

"I believe that this Council and the general membership of the College have a right to know why I resigned from this Committee. I do assure you that it had nothing to do with the working of Disciplinary Committee with which I had no quarrel but with the working of the disciplinary process.  All will know that I have been greatly concerned by the way in which some members of the profession conducted themselves during the 2001 outbreak of foot and mouth disease, and that I have been trying to persuade the College that it must offer its members protection against the power of the State when it acts unfairly, unethically or illegally.  Our members must be able to turn to their employers and say “if I do that, then I could be brought before the RCVS. Sadly the College has chosen not to defend our members, but to side with those people who carried out the illegal culling policy last year.  The College in the form of the PIC has accepted the defence that:

“Vets were observing DEFRA/MAFF policy current at the time and so there is no evidence that such conduct amounts to serious professional misconduct”. 

Some people might say that such a defence was rejected by a court in Germany more that 50 years ago.

I have striven to persuade the College that we must be seen to be acting in the interests of the public.  In March, I received a letter from the Head of Professional Conduct stating:

“The (PI) Committee has asked me to inform you that it was concerned with your involvement with these complaints and that it is not appropriate for you as member of the Disciplinary Committee, to advise these complainants.  The Committee’s view was that you should not use the College in this way to further your opposition to DEFRA policies.”

I must state that I have little interest in DEFRA policies except where they impinge on professional conduct; my prime concern is to try and persuade the College to defend the professional interest. Because of Mr Hockey’s letter I had no option but to resign, so that I could continue the fight.  The College is happy to bring before it somebody who signs a false certificate involving a single animal, but will take no action against those who signed false certificates that resulted in the slaughter of millions of healthy animals.  Is there not something wrong ?

The Deputy Registrar suggested that I should discuss some of the issues with the Lay Observers on the PIC.  I sent these members a cutting from the Daily Telegraph concerning a court case in which a veterinary surgeon was criticized for his actions: the PIC had decided that he was

“following DEFRA/MAFF policy current at the time and so there was no evidence that such conduct amounts to serious professional misconduct.”  Does this College accept that it is right for a vet to break down a door to kill animals ?  The only reply to me from either Lay Observer was Paragraph 7 of their report to this Council in which, without any discussion with me, they attribute base motives for my actions.  Are these people impartial or do they write what our Officers want them to write.

It has been suggested that the reason for the supine position of the College is and I quote from a letter from a farmer:

“it (the RCVS) fears that unless it stands four square with the Government it may get a new Veterinary Surgeons Act that is unfavourable to the profession.”

On several occasions I have raised this matter with members of your Officer team and been told that such is not the case and that I must trust them to act correctly.  You will imagine my dismay when I received a letter from another farmer who had had a meeting with representatives of the PIC, she stated that an Officer of this College had said to her and I quote

“that she (the farmer) had an interesting case (their complaint against the vet.) but that he felt that they (the RCVS) were not in a position to take it any further as they wanted to ‘keep in’ with the Government so that they continue to have influence over the forthcoming Animal Health Bill.” 

The latest Statutory Instrument on Transmissable Spongiform Encephalopathies shows just how much influence the RCVS has over DEFRA.

Mr President,  I rest my case. 

If this College is prepared to give up its student prizes, give away its Library and hand over arbitration of the ethics of this great profession to a Government Department one can only ask,

“What is the RCVS for ?”

Roger Windsor.