In the age of #MeToo, what kind of misconduct could cross the line into the domain of a legal regulator? John Gould examines the role & limits of professional discipline
- It is not the proper function of legal regulators to cast themselves as instruments of social change, nor to police sexual morality or general bad behaviour.
- The key question is whether misconduct represents an ongoing risk that a person is not fit to practise.
`Sexual intercourse began In nineteen sixty-three (which was rather late for me)— Between the end of the “Chatterley” ban And the Beatles’ first LP’
I have no reason to think—although I haven’t checked—that Philip Larkin was ever a member of a disciplinary tribunal. Had he been forced to sit in judgement on the sexual conduct of other poets, he may have struggled to know where to start. He may have wondered whether the ethical standards of an artist were relevant to the quality of their art. He may have worried that the public expects artists to behave badly anyway—sending a bloody
