The slip occurred when the Nelson-based lawyer was interviewed while representing the parents of a baby at the centre of a stand-off over the use of vaccinated people’s blood in what doctors argued was necessary, life-saving surgery.
Grey’s use of the child’s name attracted a complaint from lawyers for Te Whatu Ora/Health NZ.
The New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal said in a decision released publicly today that given the six breaches and the “somewhat sloppier use of the child’s name in the second interview”, unsatisfactory conduct has been made out on the balance of probabilities.
The tribunal found Grey needed to take greater care than she did, and her conduct fell short of the standards of diligence a member of the public was entitled to expect of a lawyer.
However, in the circumstances, it took a “somewhat more tolerant view” than might be usual because it was accepted she did not deliberately set out to flout the suppression order.
“This finding is important,” the tribunal said.
The tribunal, made up of a panel of senior lawyers and judges, heard in October a charge against Grey brought by the NZ Law Society’s disciplinary body, the National Standards Committee, which asserted that the use of the child’s name and that of the parents was a breach of the statutory name suppression laws.
Grey responded that what happened was a mistake, brought about by tiredness, confusion and the melee surrounding the high-profile matter in late 2022.
Grey was instructed by the parents of the baby, for whom hospital authorities had sought a guardianship order from the court to permit blood transfusion.
The parents resisted that order because they wanted any blood used to come from a person unvaccinated against Covid-19.
At that first call of the high-profile matter, suppression was not raised, but at the beginning of the December 6 hearing the High Court ruled that the child’s name or particulars likely to lead to the identification of the baby were suppressed.
Grey says she made the suppression order clear to other family members and to members of the media before any interviews were undertaken.
The first of two online interviews was with former broadcaster Liz Gunn and livestreamed on her social media platform.
On two occasions Grey realised that she had used an abbreviated form of the mother’s name inadvertently.
The tribunal said in its findings that throughout the interview, Gunn referred to the parents’ first names and a shortening of the baby’s name.
Grey’s evidence was that she wondered whether she ought to say something to Gunn, but was concerned that doing so would draw more attention to the breach, and the names being used by the interviewer.
The second online interview happened the next day with a Canadian interviewer when the baby’s shortened name was mentioned four times.
Grey accepted she had erred and apologised for doing so.
The tribunal found the threshold of appreciable risk of identification had been met in each of the six examples put forward, and that while a deliberate breach of a suppression order would be misconduct, that was not the situation in this case.
“We do not think that in respect of these two interviews, Ms Grey was wilful or reckless or that lawyers of good standing would describe her conduct as disgraceful or dishonourable.
“She made a mistake, nothing more.”
A penalty would be decided at another hearing.
Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.
