Professional Discipline & Regulatory

'Natalia is an excellent barrister. She keeps a cool head under pressure and yet has a steely determination when challenged in situations where she knows that she is right.'

'Natalia is an excellent and firm advocate, with a natural talent for persuasion and strategic initiative.'

The Legal 500 2026

Natalia Constantine has a well-established professional discipline and regulatory practice, acting for both regulators and registrants across a broad range of fitness to practise proceedings. She is regularly instructed in complex, high-stakes cases involving reputational and career-defining issues and is recognised for her clear, structured advocacy and ability to navigate the most sensitive matters with precision and composure.

Natalia has presented and defended cases before a wide range of regulatory bodies and tribunals, including the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), the General Medical Council / Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (GMC/MPTS), the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA), the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), and the Ministry of Defence (MOD).

She acts as a Presenting Officer in complex final hearings for the Health and Care Professions Council and has been instructed by the Medical Defence Union to represent doctors before the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service. Her experience before the Nursing and Midwifery Council is extensive, encompassing the full range of conduct, competence and health proceedings involving nurses and midwives.

Natalia's background includes a period at the Royal College of Nursing, where she regularly appeared in fitness to practise proceedings, giving her a deep familiarity with the clinical and professional context in which regulatory issues arise. This practical grounding is complemented by an academic foundation in medical law and ethics, she holds an MA in Medical Ethics and Medical Law from King's College London, which enables her to engage with complex clinical questions with both legal rigour and genuine understanding.

In addition to her advocacy practice, Natalia has sat as a Legal Assessor for the National Registers of Communication Professionals working with Deaf and Deafblind People (NRCPD) and the Ministry of Defence, reflecting her depth of expertise in professional discipline decision-making and procedure.

She also accepts instructions to represent students in university misconduct and fitness to practise proceedings and welcomes instructions in this area.

Cases

Paramedic PO  

Instructed as Presenting Officer in a substantial sexual misconduct case involving 65 allegations spanning more than seven years. The case involved a significant number of witnesses and required sensitive and careful witness handling throughout. Following a complex multi-day hearing, all allegations of fact were found proved, misconduct was established, and the panel determined that the appropriate and proportionate sanction was a striking off order.

Dr KO 

Instructed on behalf of a doctor facing multiple criminal allegations, in the context of an application by the General Medical Council for an Interim Suspension Order. Following submissions advanced by Natalia, the Interim Orders Tribunal determined that an Interim Conditions of Practice Order was the appropriate measure, accepting the case that immediate suspension was neither necessary nor proportionate in the circumstances.

Nurse BC 

Instructed to represent a senior nurse of good character facing 21 separate allegations of lack of competence. Natalia successfully persuaded the Conduct and Competence Committee of the Nursing and Midwifery Council that there was no case to answer on five of the charges. Of the five charges subsequently found proved, the Committee determined that none amounted to misconduct, resulting in no adverse finding against her client's fitness to practise.

Student VM 

Instructed to represent a medical student accused of sexual assault in university misconduct proceedings. Following careful preparation and advocacy, no case was found against the student, enabling him to continue his medical studies without interruption.

Ranked as a Leading Junior in Crime and in Professional Disciplinary and Regulatory Law

‘Charles is the full-package; he is extremely knowledgeable, diligent, and leaves no stone unturned, and his advocacy is always of the highest quality.’

'Charles is a confident communicator and very personable.'

The Legal 500 2026

Charles is a very experienced regulatory practitioner, ranked as a 'leading junior' in this practice area. He is regularly instructed by regulators, professional bodies, and registrants — both privately and on a direct access basis — in cases involving allegations of dishonesty, professional boundary violations, safeguarding concerns, sexual misconduct, lack of competence and fitness to practise, and undertakes substantive trials, interim orders, reviews and restoration hearings.

Charles is instructed by a broad range of regulators and professional bodies, including the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA), the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the General Optical Council (GOC), Social Work England (SWE) and the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA), for whom he also sits in a quasi-judicial capacity as a co-optable Panel Member drafting judgments. He undertook a three-month secondment at the NMC in 2019.

Charles is at Level B of the Specialist Regulatory Advocates Panel in Health and Safety and Environmental Law, reflecting a firm grasp of the legislative regimes enforced by participating government departments, and has accepted instructions involving alleged breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, and the Security Industry Act 2001. He has conducted contested appeals in the Magistrates' Court and Crown Court concerning enforcement notices in fire safety, and has prosecuted for local authorities, notably the Isle of Wight Council, in matters involving breaches of the Education Act and fire safety legislation.

Charles is regularly instructed by the BACP to conduct its disciplinary hearings, draft documents, and provide written advice on law and procedure, and has frequently conducted its final hearings over the last five years. These cases include breaches of professional boundaries, financial and sexual misconduct, and the ending of the therapeutic relationship, and often involve extremely vulnerable complainants and witnesses as well as novel points of law and procedure. He also carries out a case officer role for the BACP, reviewing cases, drafting correspondence and assisting in the preparation of witness statements.

Charles has experience of inquests, having acted for a nurse in a case touching upon the deaths of three care home residents, involving the CQC's enforcement powers and monitoring activities and a Local Authority safeguarding team. He undertakes significant documentation review work, including legal professional privilege reviews for the National Crime Agency and disclosure work on the Post Office Horizon case. He has developed a deep understanding of disclosure across extremely paper-heavy and sensitive cases.

Charles's regulatory work is underpinned by a substantial criminal practice built up over the last nine years, principally in the Crown Court, including as a Level 4 Prosecutor on the CPS Panel, a member of the Serious Crime Group Specialist Panel and Fraud Specialist Panel, and a member of the SFO Prosecution Panel. This breadth of experience is directly relevant to regulatory work sharing a statutory or enforcement basis, such as health and safety, fire safety and licensing matters, and demonstrates a wider competency across legislative regimes generally.

Prior to pupillage, Charles undertook charity work representing parents of children at school-based disciplinary hearings and independent review panels, where schools had often breached their own guidelines and education law when excluding pupils. His role was to apply High Court principles, including those relevant to judicial review, to quash exclusion decisions and enable children to remain in education.

Advisory Work

Charles was instructed by a large regulator, with over 50,000 members, to advise on the admissibility of consensual and covert recordings, an area the regulator had previously treated as settled against admissibility. Having reviewed the law on relevance, fairness, human rights and data protection, Charles advised that such recordings could in certain circumstances be admissible; his advice and guidance were accepted, disseminated to staff for use in both investigations and fitness to practise hearings, and led to a change in the regulator's approach, including a review of its existing cases. That guidance is now widely applied, and evidence has since been successfully introduced in proceedings where previously it would not have been.

Charles recently advised a regulator on a review of its ethical framework, after a case he had presented failed on a narrow definition of 'client' within that framework. He advised the project team drafting the next edition that panels were erroneously treating paragraphs of the framework as strict rules requiring proof of a breach before a finding of failure to meet professional standards could be made, and recommended the drafting be widened to avoid public protection and confidence issues arising from cases failing on a technicality.

Cases

Regulatory Case Highlights

BACP

Presented a contested hearing before a professional conduct panel of the BACP on its Disciplinary Proceedings Track. The case concerned breaches of professional standards, namely therapeutically unjustified interventions regarding the complainant's sexual experiences, breaches of professional and personal boundaries and a failure to competently deliver services to at least fundamental professional standards or better. The case utilised covert recordings. Charles had previously drafted guidance for the regulator on this issue including guidance on hearsay, data protection, and RIPA 2000, and had conducted the regulator's first case using covert recordings.

TRA

Presented a contested hearing concerning allegations of unacceptable professional conduct and conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute. The teacher engaged in inappropriate relationships with three ex-pupils and failed to maintain professional boundaries. He sent an excessive number of messages, many of which were inappropriate, and was emotionally manipulative and abusive. The Panel found that the teacher's conduct amounted to harassment, and concluded the behaviour was unacceptable professional conduct and conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute. The case was challenging due to the teacher's mental health difficulties and featured special measures for the three complainants.

HCPC

Appointed to conduct cross-examination of a complainant in a sensitive case concerning a registered paramedic alleged to have behaved sexually and violently towards his daughter whilst abroad. Charles cross-examined the complainant daughter on the father's instructions. Whilst a number of particulars were admitted by the registrant, the Panel found that the registrant did not assault his daughter and was not seeking sexual gratification nor acted in pursuit of a sexual relationship with her. The Panel further found that none of the proven particulars constituted misconduct, whether singly or cumulatively.

FA (Surrey Football Association)

Defended a football referee pro bono in disciplinary proceedings brought by the Surrey Football Association. The referee was accused of aggravated improper conduct by way of racism towards a player. The FA called evidence from two players, a team manager, and two spectators. The sole evidence for the defence was from the referee himself. Charles made submissions concerning the inherent improbability of the alleged conduct using regulator-specific case law (The FA v Kiko Casilla, 20 February 2020, paragraphs 20–22, 33, 81–86, 100; The FA v John Terry, 24–27 September 2012). The Commission found the allegations not proven.

PMCPA

As a co-optable panel member for the regulator, Charles sat with two other panel members to judge this case on the written evidence of the parties. The complainant alleged that a pharmaceutical company had inappropriately used medical and educational goods and services (a MEGS) to promote a drug and demonstrated a poor culture, in breach of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry Code of Practice 2019. This was further alleged to amount to a failure to maintain high standards and to have brought discredit upon and reduced confidence in the industry. The panel found that the complainant had not demonstrated on the balance of probabilities that the case was made out. With the assistance of his co-panellists, Charles drafted the decision to be published. This was his first experience on the judicial side of regulatory law.

HCPC

Appointed to conduct cross-examination of three complainants in a sensitive case concerning a registered radiographer facing 26 allegations concerning sexual misconduct, bullying, harassment and racism. The case was complex and multifaceted and required robust but sensitive advocacy and special measures.

BACP

Presented a contested hearing concerning allegations of professional misconduct involving religious indoctrination by a counsellor and discussion of inappropriate sexual violence and boundary breaches. The complainant was very vulnerable and required significant client care due to exhibiting high levels of distress. Significant cross-examination of the registrant was undertaken.

MOPAC

Legal adviser to the panel for a case involving a historic sexual offence allegedly committed by a police officer against her colleague. Provided detailed advice to the Panel on a number of issues that arose during the hearing, including delay, emotion in cases of sexual assault, special measures, the principle of inherent improbability, good character, misconduct, and anonymity applications, as well as advice on the purpose of regulatory proceedings, the Panel's role and the burden and standard of proof. Following the hearing, Charles drafted the decision, which was published.

BACP

Case concerning antisemitic social media posts by a former Channel 4 executive, alleged to amount to professional misconduct and to bring the profession into disrepute. There were 14 referrals to the regulator. Advice was provided on what amounts to expert evidence and opinion evidence, together with recent High Court authority on the definition of antisemitism.

Further Regulatory Examples

The following are further examples drawn from the circa hundreds of regulatory cases Charles has been involved in:

NMC v M (NMC Edinburgh): Successful presentation of a medicine mismanagement case.  https://www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk/news/people/failure-learn-past-sees-borders-nurse-struck-again-852191#gsc.tab=0

BACP v C: Presented the BACP's first hearing under its new procedure.

IOW v K (Blackfriars Crown Court): Successfully represented the Isle of Wight Council in a civil regulatory appeal, succeeding on all issues, including resisting a reference to the CJEU. Costs of nearly £15,000 were awarded.

Met Police v BL (Ealing Magistrates' Court): Successfully represented a shisha bar in an emergency closure order application.

Home Office v T (Luton Magistrates' Court): Successfully represented the Home Office in a cash forfeiture case.

TRA v K: Sexual misconduct hearing for the teaching regulator.

HMIC v B: Instructed by the Government Legal Department to assist in the preparation of a matter concerning Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary.

HSE v A: Successful sentence in a health and safety case concerning a serious injury at work.

CQC v S: Prosecuted a sensitive and serious sentence concerning the failure to provide safe care and treatment resulting in avoidable harm to a service user, contrary to the Health and Social Care Act 2008, in which the service user died. The Panel found the company had fallen far short of standards over a sustained period. The case involved a contested harm categorisation, resolved in line with Charles's submissions, and public interest considerations including discontinuance against the care home manager. It was reported in the media, and resulted in an £80,000 fine.

HSE v C: Prosecuted a sentence, which attracted media interest, involving a tree falling on an elderly couple. Successfully argued for Category A harm categorisation following legal argument, and secured a full award of costs after detailed costs schedules were prepared.

HSE v E: Prosecuted a sentence against a King's Counsel which received national media attention, concerning a company with Royal Navy vessel repair contracts whose breach of Regulation 4(1) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 could have resulted in serious injury or death to two workers. The company, which had a turnover of over £18 million and a previous conviction for similar matters, was fined £100,000 plus costs.