Leo Molloy: Retired vet on $23K fine for breaching name suppression

In 2021 retired veterinarian and ex-mayoral candidate Leo Molloy was convicted for knowingly publishing a name in breach of a suppression.

In a forum on the NZ Premier Racing Community’s website called “Main Street Cafe” Molloy made a post identifying Jesse Kempson as Grace Millane's killer before he was publicly named. 

The Veterinary Council is now seeking censure and a $23,000 fine.

"Not one veterinarian ever complained about what I did, and not one member of the public complained for that matter," Molloy told Heather du Plessis-Allan.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now do you remember the time that Leo mLOY breached
name suppression and got fined fifteen thousand dollars by the courts?
Well four years on and he's just been pinged again,
and this time it's by the Veterinary Council of New
Zealand who've ordered him to pay twenty three thousand dollars.
Leomloy is with us.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hello Leo Heather, how are you today?

Speaker 1 (00:17):
I'm very well, thank you? Are you going to pay this?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Well, they haven't built me yet, but when they build
me I expect I probably will. Why Well, I still
kind of register even though I'm registered as a retired vet.
I don't really want to lose my title. We don't
want to be struck warfing like that.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
So is it worth it twenty three thousand dollars to
stay in the register?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Well, I mean I never never use that for leverage,
but in my view, once you're a vet, you're always
a vet, and it's a little bit of a bond
between us, so I would have thought it's worth it.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
So what is the twenty three thousand dollars for?

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Just legal fees? It's just those lunatics from Crown Prosecution
Services down there in Wellington who they pursued the whole
thing right from the start, never been about other veteran
and it's not one veterinarian even complained about what I did,
and not one member of the public complained for that matter.
But a registrar who was himself a lawyer named Liam
Shields I think his name was. He contacted us about
four years ago and said we're going to interview you,

(01:13):
going to come and see you, which we did, and
then he said a letter about six months later saying
we're going to pursue these charges and this has taken
this long for us to get around the table.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
But angers so, how are their legal costs that the
Veterinary Council has incurred.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
That's a very good question, and that maybe one that's
being contemplated across the industry today because I've had a
lot of vets in touch with me and they're all
expressing their dismay at what happened. Because see, we live
in the vetery profession. There's only fifty people went through
in myyar. Ten percent of them are dead, all by
their own hand. I might have, but that's a bit
of a digression, so we won't go there, but ten

(01:49):
percent of them are dead, so forty five or left them.
They had a reunion about four months ago. We had
some dialogue after that, but a mutual chat site thing
on WhatsApp, and it was quite interesting talking to them
about what was going on and how a lot of
people sort of feel like the've lost control of the industry.
The Veterinary Council now seems to run its own race,
and as you get a certain type of veterinarian who

(02:11):
wants to be an adjudicator. So two of the five
year stay on the panel were adjudicators, were vets. Yeah,
the other three we are sorry, three of the five.
Two of the five were lawyers, and I think there
was a sixth lawyer there too, a sixth person who
is a lawyer. But yeah, it's all about the lawyers.
They tend to make all the rules now and they
just proceed. So when your registrar is a lawyer, to okay.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
But in all like, genuinely you have no idea how
the Veterinary Council has incurred legal fees with regards to
your breach of you breaching name suppression.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Well, this guy's name was Finley Biggs and he's got
facial hair. I'm not sure what to read into that,
but I'm always deeply suspicious of a mammoth facial hair.
If Williamson still got facial hair, I'm not quite sure
about that now. No, No, that fellow that you're going
to have next on the.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Huddle, Oh Morris, I don't know what I asked, Morris.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, okay, to be suspicious of those sort of people.
But you know this Finlay, big rooster, he said around
the show yesterday, and he had a fair bit to say.
All they didn't know much about vetingy matters. He was
very much into the technical legal elements. And we spent
about four and a half hours zooming. And of the
four and a half hours, they took a forty five
minute break from morning teen and they took an hour's
break for lunch. About half a time was just spent

(03:17):
doing what you're doing. And when they come back, they
said that you were going to pay forty five percent
of our cost, which will be eighteen thousand or something. Plush,
you're getting fined another five thousand dollars for the cost
of the hearing today.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
I tell you what, you sound remarkably chill about it Leo,
Thank you very much, Leo malloy, retired vet and best
of luck with it.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, Listen live to
news Talks It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio