AC-2023-LON-002171 - [2024] EWHC 132 (Admin)

In Ivey Lord Hughes explained the legal test for dishonesty as follows:

“74.

...Where dishonesty is in question the fact-finding tribunal must first ascertain (subjectively) the actual state of the individual’s knowledge or belief as to the facts. The reasonableness or otherwise of his belief is a matter of evidence (often in practice determinative) going to whether he held the belief, but it is not an additional requirement that his belief must be reasonable; the question is whether it is genuinely held. When once his actual state of mind as to knowledge or belief as to facts is established, the question whether his conduct was honest or dishonest is to be determined by the fact-finder by applying the (objective) standards of ordinary decent people. There is no requirement that the defendant must appreciate that what he has done is, by those standards, dishonest.”

This test applies to regulatory proceedings: Photay v General Dental Council [2023] EWHC 661 (Admin) at para 44.

Given the nature of the Ivey test, the registrant’s actual state of mind is a critical issue for the first instance body to resolve in determining whether the conduct in question is honest or dishonest: see for example para 77 in GDC v Williams [2023] EWCA Civ 481.